Evo Morales has lost control of the Movement Al Socialism (MAS), the party he led for more than two decades and that brought him to power between 2006 and 2019. In the midst of the dispute with his former leader, President Luis Arce, The Bolivian justice system decided to validate a parallel congress in which an ally of Arce, the leader Grover García, was elected as head of the party.
Through a resolution, the Bolivia’s Plurinational Constitutional Court (TCP) ended the dispute over the party’s leadership and validated García as the new president of the MAS. The magistrates Gonzalo Hurtado e Yván Espadawho sign the resolution, indicated that the National Congress of the MAS-IPSP, held in El Alto between May 3 and 5, 2024, and convened by factions of the founding organizations of the party, allied to the Government, is valid .
However, Morales and his followers had also held a party convention in the town of Lauca Ñ, in the Chapare of Cochabamba, the political and union stronghold of the coca grower leader, in which they ratified him as head of the MAS. The ruling of the Fourth Chamber of the TCP, issued this Thursday, endorses the “arcist” congress of El Alto and displaces Morales.
With that decision, Former president Evo Morales is stripped of his powers as head of the MAS. This TCP ruling coincides with another determination that complicates Morales’ political future, a constitutional order, signed on November 1, that prevents the election of authorities for the third time.
The new party leadership is made up of Fidel Surcoof the Trade Union Confederation of Intercultural Communities Originating from Bolivia, and Julia Ramos, who represents the National Confederation of Indigenous Peasant Women of Bolivia “Bartolina Sisa”.
Los three were people close to Morales when he was in power. García has extensive experience as a union leader, he was municipal mayor and president and vice president of the MAS in Cochabamba. Fidel Surco was a senator and leader of the MAS and Julia Ramos was a deputy and Minister of Rural Development and Lands.
Control of the party was one of the axes of the dispute between Morales and Arce. Both held their congresses, elected the new directors and tried to validate them institutionally. As the final deadline approaches to avoid the cancellation of the MAS due to lack of agreements, The coca leader led mobilizations between September and November with a series of demands, including the validation of the Llauca Ñ congress, in which he was ratified as head of the MAS.
Until the publication of this note, Morales had not commented on his displacement as historical head of the party. However, he spoke out about the arrest of peasant leaders who led the September and October mobilizations against the Government, which he accused of creating “a plan to teach social struggle in the style of military dictatorships, where Through the manipulation of justice, we seek to discipline society so that it quietly and submissively accepts the current economic situation.”.
The ruling that prevents him from being a candidate again and that annuls his leadership in the party, complicates Evo Morales’ return to power and at the same time it generates concern about the use of justice to order the political scenario, in a country overwhelmed by the economic, political and institutional crisis.
