The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) of Bolivia indicated this Wednesday that former president Evo Morales (2006-2019) remains the leader of the ruling Movement towards Socialism (MAS) until the new leadership, which was elected in a congress of the party promoted by sectors related to the Government of Luis Arce last Sunday.
According to TSE member Tahuichi Quispe, the board that Morales has presided over for 27 years remains “in force and recognized” by the electoral body, until a new one is registered and recognized.
For his part, Gustavo Ávila, also a member of the organization, confirmed that the report on the MAS congress that was held from May 3 to 5 in the city of El Alto by the block loyal to Arce, will be known in 15 days and will be will determine the validity of the new directive.
After these announcements, the ‘arcist’ sectors warned this Wednesday that they will “mobilize” if the new president of the MAS, Grover García, who replaced Morales, and his leadership are not ratified.
Mario Seña, general secretary of the Single Trade Union Confederation of Peasant Workers (Csutcb), an organization close to the Government, declared that “the population is in emergency” and that “there are going to be some demonstrations” in case the Electoral Body ignores Grover García as the new official leader.
Former President Morales described the conclave as “illegal” and warned that he would wage a strong “legal battle” to avoid being relegated as party leader. In addition, he declared that he will be a presidential candidate for the 2025 presidential elections “by hook or by crook.” ”.
The organizations loyal to the former president have scheduled their own MAS congress for July 10 in Villa Tunari, in the Tropics of Cochabamba, Morales’s political and union stronghold, and they also hope that the TSE will accompany that event.
The new president of the MAS, Grover García, called a new congress in three months, to change the party’s statutes and “refound it” so that “it will never again be in the hands of a single person,” as President Arce had already pointed out. at the beginning of the conclave last Friday.
While Morales accused this Sunday President Arce, who was his Minister of Economy, of having a plan to “extend” himself in power and said that the president “offered the magistrates of the Plurinational Constitutional Court an extension of his mandate until 2027.” ″ to help him with that “plan.”
Arce and Morales have been estranged since 2021 and last year the division in the ruling party deepened, due to the holding of a national congress in which, in the absence of the president and his loyal sectors, the former president was confirmed as leader of the MAS and was named “sole candidate” for the 2025 elections.
Arce did not attend that meeting considering that the social organizations, the basis of the party, were not properly represented.
Tensions increased after the TSE decided to annul the 2023 congress and instruct that a new consensual one be called, something on which both pro-government factions also did not agree.
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