The internal fight of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) in Bolivia is going through its most critical moment due to the judicial accusations against Evo Morales and the pressure measures that he carries out through the social organizations that support him. The most advanced case has to do with an investigation into human trafficking and statutory rape, in which the coca leader is accused of having impregnated a teenager when he was president.
The Minister of Government, Eduardo Del Castillo, challenged the former president to, instead of generating conflict, try to prove his innocence and added that the Bolivian people have the right to know the truth. “If they report me for an act of rape, I immediately ask them to take a blood sample, take a DNA sample, remove a hair from me and do a DNA test immediately. I’m going to prove that I’m innocent. That is what Mr. Morales should do,” Del Castillo said in statements to the media in the city of El Alto.
Since Monday, Morales’s followers have been carrying out a road blockade that has become more crowded and has isolated the department of Cochabamba from the rest of the country. This measure generates economic losses, interrupts the normal supply of food and may cause fuel shortages in some regions, according to information from Yacimientos Petroleros Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), which indicated that there are 570 tanker trucks stranded.
One of the main motivations for the protest is the possible arrest of Morales, after he had been absent from taking statements to which he was summoned on October 10 in the city of Tarija. The prosecutor handling the case, Sandra Gutiérrez, indicated that what corresponds is to issue an arrest warrant. However, more than a week after the announcement, Del Castillo reported that the Police have not yet received the arrest warrant.
The protesters demand that all proceedings against him be dropped, which according to Evism are part of a lawfare campaign to end his political career.
In the rape case, the parents of the young woman whom the former head of state allegedly abused and with whom he had a daughter in 2016, when he was 57 years old and the victim was 16, are also being investigated. having acted in complicity with the objective of obtaining political benefits. The young woman’s father was sent to the Morros Blancos prison, in Tarija, as a preventive measure. So far, the police have not found the victim or his mother.
Other demands of the blockade
In addition to the legal situation of the head of the MAS, other demands linked to his party leadership are added. Morales’ followers demand that a partial congress of the MAS that ratified him as head of the party and proclaimed him a candidate for the 2025 elections be validated. However, these determinations are not the responsibility of the Executive Branch but of the judicial and electoral bodies, respectively.
On the other hand, the evismo presented a series of union demands on economic issues and conditioned the dialogue with the Government on the repeal of some supreme decrees, such as 5225 that prohibits burning, a necessary measure given the incidence of fire in Bolivia that has devastated more than ten million hectares in less than five months.
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