For 14 years, Evo Morales lived at Bolivia’s presidential residence. Now, to find it you need to face a four-hour trip through mountain ranges to a small town named Lauca Eñe, pass a control post and enter a complex in the woods, where loyal followers protect it from a possible prison.
Socialist, former racket and union leader, Morales became an imposing figure as the first indigenous president of Bolivia. From his first term, in 2006, he reshaped the political scenario and directed resources to social programs and public works.
But Morales’s attempt to win a fourth term ended in a contested election, social agitation and his escape to temporary exile. Before the first round of Sunday’s presidential election, he leads a kind of ghost campaign, although he is prevented from running again by Bolivian court, who cited the mandate limits.
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He is also the target of an arrest warrant, accused of human trafficking and having become pregnant a 15 -year -old teenager when he was president. He did not deny the accusations or said he had a son with her. The accusation, however, did not reduce its support among many Bolivians.
“He has gained respect for the people,” said Edith Mendoza, mother of three children, 40, in Isinuta, central Bolivia. “He is the only president who was with us.”
Like Morales, she classified the accusations as politically motivated.
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“Opposition parties do not want to let him compete because they know Evo Morales will win,” he said. “They are afraid.”
Current President Luis Arce, previously protected from Morales and today rival, does not seek reelection in the election. Another leftist, the president of the andron Senate Rodríguez, is in the dispute against a right-wing businessman, Samuel Doria Medina, and former conservative president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga.
Prevented from competing, Morales asked his supporters to nullify the vote in protest – an appeal that former left -wing allies consider a selfish maneuver that may favor the right.
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“If he is not a candidate, no one else can be a candidate,” said Luis Arce, the current president, known as Lucho and member of the movement to socialism (but). He accused Morales of trying to “wear out, prevent me from being a candidate, prevents but has a chance to rule.”
Morales, arguing that it is still the best name to lead Bolivia, surrounded himself with his most faithful allies in his refuge.
“It’s not about protecting Evo,” Morales said in an interview this week. “It is about protecting our process and protecting the region.”
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In the center of the Enclave, between tents, there is a simple and already spent building, with a modest office: the former president’s headquarters, where he presents a weekly radio political program. Morales photos with other leftist leaders in the region – Hugo Chavez, Venezuela, and Fidel Castro, from Cuba – decorate the walls, next to the trophies that celebrate their leadership in the Bolivia Coke Producers Union.
His first victory in 2005 was the culmination of decades of mobilization of the most marginalized groups in the country, said Arce.
“All those who had been discriminated against, excluded from society and now, instead of excluded, have come to rule,” he said. “We reduce poverty, reduce inequalities.”
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Morales fulfilled three terms, convincing the court to allow his third candidacy through a legal breach. But his attempt to win a fourth term in 2019 – considered unconstitutional by critics – ended with massive protests, a repression that left dozens of the dead and plunged the country into a democratic crisis.
Faced with the accusations of electoral fraud, Morales left the country for a brief period.
When new elections were summoned in 2020, Morales indicated Arce, his former Finance Minister, as a candidate for MAS. Arce’s undisputed victory seemed to mark a peaceful transition of power and a moment of hope after so much instability.
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This promise, however, broke out. Economic problems – fuel shortages, high inflation and lack of dollars – caused protests, while Morales and Arce entered a bitter dispute for party control.
The turbulence eroded Morales over the years. Romina Solano, a 33 -year -old law student in Cochabamba, said she had voted for him in previous elections, but now supports Doria Medina.
She criticized Morales for looking for a fourth term. “This was the first blow, because I realized that he did not accept that we live in a democracy in Bolivia,” he said.
Morales still maintains support between part of the electorate and members of the MAS, party he left last year. Last year surveys indicate their support between 12% and 18%, although it may be higher in rural areas where surveys do not arrive.
He argues that if all blank, null and undecided votes were attributed to him, he would lead the polls.
For him, but it is nothing without his presence.
“The plan is that Evo doesn’t have a party,” he said.
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