Bolivia: the three setbacks suffered in one week by Evo Morales and the MAS against international organizations

Last week, MAS leader President Luis Arce and movement leader Evo Morales have suffered three setbacks from international organizations on issues crucial to Bolivian politics.

These blows to the ruling party came from European Union (EU), Organization of American States (OAS) and Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) in different topics related to the episodes of 2019.

European Union has rejected “conspiracy” accusations

On August 5, the European Union responded to accusations by state attorney general Wilfredo Chávez, also a lawyer for Morales, who called “Criminals” to diplomatic, political and Catholic Church representatives who met on the premises of the Bolivian Catholic University on the critical days of November 2019.

Instead, the European Union (EU) delegation and accredited diplomatic missions in La Paz they denied having participated in a “conspiracy” and a “coup” against former Bolivian President Evo Morales in 2019.

The EU said in its statement that in collaboration with the Catholic Church “helped to pacify the country in times of extreme tension, facilitating a platform of dialogue, with the aim of avoiding more violence and putting an end to the crisis which shook the country ”.

These round tables took place between the ruling party and the opposition in the midst of social chaos, with a police riot and with the military removing Morales’s support.

For the OAS, Morales benefited from irregularities in 2019

An office of the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS) ratified last Monday that In Bolivia’s 2019 elections, former president Evo Morales took advantage of irregularities, dealing a further blow to MAS and former President Morales.

The organization’s Secretariat for Strengthening Democracy said in a statement that “Reiterates the conclusions of the 2019 electoral integrity analysis in Bolivia” which said at the time that there had been “malicious manipulation”.

The 2019 report supported the version of opponents who denounced that Morales, in power since 2006, was responsible for the irregularities to stay in power until 2025.

At Morales’s request, the OAS conducted a full audit of the October 2019 elections, and concluded that “there was malicious manipulation and serious irregularities which make it impossible to validate the results initially issued by the Bolivian electoral authorities ”.

The OAS office, in its statement, listed the irregularities observed during the elections of that year. He mentioned, for example, a “Voluntary termination of the Preliminary Results Transmission System (TREP) [de conteo rápido]”And the existence of” servers [informáticos] illegals ”.

The TREP system was shut down for a few days, without a clear explanation from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, while opponents said he was showing a turnaround in the votes in favor of Morales.

The OAS office said there was a “Provision of false information”, “fraudulent and irregular filling in of tally sheets”, “irregularities in the processing of foreign files” and “seizure of at least 1,575 TREP files (environment whose network has been violated and manipulated) directly to the official statement ”.

IACHR said indefinite re-election violates democracy

Finally, last Friday, the IACHR published an advisory opinion in which it determined that presidential re-election for an indefinite period is not a human right and which violates democratic principles.

“The indefinite presidential re-election it does not constitute an autonomous right protected by the American Convention on Human Rights or by the corpus iuris of international human rights law ”, established by the IACHR in the advisory opinion requested since 2019 by the State of Colombia.

The Court also warned that “The greatest current danger for democracies in the region is not a brutal collapse of constitutional order, but a gradual erosion of democratic guarantees that can lead to authoritarian rule., even if he is elected in popular elections ”.

The outcome of the advisory opinion was eagerly awaited by the The Bolivian opposition which sought to disqualify the candidacy of Evo Morales in the general election that year, later overturned amid allegations of fraud in favor of the former president who was aspiring to a fourth consecutive term.

The ex-president Jorge Quiroga (2001-2002), promoter of the initiative, stressed that the IACHR underlined that “extension is not a human right, that staying in power as Evo Morales wanted is not covered by the Inter-American Convention “.

For Quiroga, Morales’ intention to “extend” power triggered the “democratic crisis” Bolivia has known for the past five and a half years, For which he also blamed ruling party members who insisted on qualifying him for the 2019 elections and Constitutional Court magistrates and election officials who approved his appointment.

“Today the debate is over. Evo Morales was an unconstitutional and illegal candidate”Quiroga said and thanked the President of Colombia, Iván Duque, for presenting the advisory opinion.

Also the former president Carlos Mesa (2003-2005) said on Twitter that the court ruling was a “historic defeat for Morales”. and celebrated the “historic repair of democracy in Bolivia” with this “binding decision”.

In a video posted by local media, Morales argued that He was “surprised that the IACHR said that re-election is not a human right” because article 23 of the Pact of San José “affirms” the contrary.

Morales was able to stand in these elections in 2019 with the approval of the Constitutional Court only in 2017 recognized at the request of the Bolivian ruling party the human right of the leaders to be elected and of the people to elect them.

The Governmental Movement for Socialism (MAS) insisted on the The re-election of Morales despite the fact that the Bolivian Constitution limits consecutive terms to two and a referendum which in 2016 denied him the opportunity to stand for re-election.

Despite these three blows to Masista’s narrative and Morales’ aspirations for the future in crucial aspects of national democracy, The former president of the coca growers celebrated as a victory the result of an investigation by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) into the events of 2019.

The Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) of The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) revealed on Tuesday that there had been massacres by military and police forces against civilians, including “summary executions”.

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