In it evism They saw it coming. After almost three years of battle between Evo Morales and President Luis Arce for control of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) and the candidacy for the 2025 national elections, last week a courtroom put an end to the dispute and marked a watershed in the history of the country’s largest party.
The final deadline to renew the directives of the political parties expired in December and the electoral calendar rushed the resignation due to internal disputes, so Morales had to play all his chips. In September he organized a seven-day march to La Paz and in October a massive road blockade that lasted for 24 days and ended with a hunger strike that lasted almost a week..
After failing to obtain attention to any of his demands or forcing the resignation of the president – which was the open request of some social leaders – the coca grower leader ordered his bases to withdraw. In his surroundings, people began to talk about the plan of arcism It was “stealing” their acronym.
Through two constitutional rulings, the judges Gonzalo Hurtado y Rene Espadathey annulled Morales’ electoral possibilities: They denied him the possibility of being a candidate again and validated the election of an ally of his as head of the party.. Both determinations generated controversy, not only because of their implications within the MAS and the rest of the political scene, but also because of the questioned legitimacy of the magistrates who signed them. Hurtado and Espada are two of the judges whose mandate expired in January and who “self-extended” until the election of their successors, a process that they have systematically boycotted through judicial remedies with the permission of the Government.
The coca grower leader has presented a memorial to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) demanding that he not comply with the constitutional ruling that he described as “illegal” and “unconstitutional” under the argument that the magistrates who ordered it are not within their mandate.
On Tuesday there will be a full chamber session to discuss the issue, but The member Gustavo Ávila told Infobae that they will abide by it. “The sentences are mandatory and binding in nature, we cannot not comply,” he explained, and said that in any case a formal response will be given to Morales’ memorial.
He constitutional lawyer José Luis Santistevan explained that the TSE cannot reject or object to sentences and that the members “are completely defenseless” because they do not enjoy the figure of judgment of responsibilities. “If the ruling is not complied with, any interested party sues and may be criminally prosecuted,” he said in an interview with this medium.
What resources does Evo Morales have left if he has no institutional possibilities and has exhausted his protest methods? “You have to build a evism without Evo,” says analyst Carlos Saavedrawho considers that, although Morales has the highest social base within the electoral scenario, he is also the politician who generates the highest level of rejection and that his ability to attract votes from the center and the non-radical left is diminished.
Morales was an electoral phenomenon in Bolivia. After years in which the parties with the most votes barely exceeded 20% of the vote, The coca grower leader won an election with 64% support in 2009slightly less than the 67% reached in a recall referendum the previous year. Now the polls show him far from those numbers.
For the political scientist Susana BejaranoMorales is a historical leader whose legacy and career “does not go away because the TCP says so,” but he admits that his political future is at least circumstantially fenced.
For the analyst, the best thing she can do is give the spotlight to other figures who continue with their political project. “(Evo) needs to take a step back and let a new election flow without him there. The only possibility of becoming politically viable is after this election,” he maintains.
Saavedra agrees that the evism He needs to find another leadership that is capable of uniting Morales’ remaining loyalties and seducing new voters, using another acronym if necessary, but he affirms that no candidate will have electoral chances if he does not distance himself from the coca leader.
“Evo is defeated morally, legally and politically. There is no Evo with the capacity for articulation in terms of electoral measurement”, he states.
For now, everything indicates that Morales is out of the game and that the only possibility it has is to maintain its political influence in the country through some new leadership, which comes to the Government or is the main opposition force, with a view to elections after 2025. Those close to it are clear: the plan B is the leadership of a new leftist project that does politics from the resistance.
How does Luis Arce look in this scenario? With Justice involved, the president has managed to win this battle and eliminate his main adversary in institutional terms.
However, many analysts believe that he arcism It has no future and will end when the Government ends. What appears to be the end of the internal dispute in the MAS takes the weight off his shoulders and puts him at the forefront of the biggest problem and main concern of Bolivians: the economic crisis, on which the continuity of his Government also depends.
