Bolivia reinstates a leftist challenger but keeps former leader Morales off the ballot

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) - Bolivia’s electoral tribunal on Friday included leftist Senate leader Andrónico Rodríguez on the list of presidential candidates approved for the ballot but excluded the powerful former socialist leader Evo Morales - the other major thorn in the president's side.

As tensions escalate in the run-up to Bolivia’s Aug. 17 elections, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal reinstated Rodríguez, a 36-year-old political upstart with close ties to Morales and roots in the ex-president’s rural coca-growing stronghold, weeks after suspending his candidacy on technical grounds in a decision that shocked many Bolivians.

"We are the candidate of the people," Rodríguez said in a speech welcoming the revival of his campaign. "Our primary concern has been to wage the legal battle, and in the end, the power of the people had to prevail."

With the ruling Movement Toward Socialism party, or MAS, riven by dysfunction and division over President Luis Arce’s power struggle with his former mentor, Morales, supporters of the senate leader see him as the only chance for MAS to beat the right-wing opposition and salvage its decades-long political dominance.

President Arce, widely blamed for accelerating Bolivia’s worst economic crisis in 40 years, dropped out of the race last month. Opinion polls show that his pick for the presidency, senior minister Eduardo del Castillo, has inherited the president’s unpopularity.

Arce’s government insists that its main rival, Morales, is constitutionally barred from running. Morales accuses Arce of waging a "judicial war" against him.

In leaving out Morales, the tribunal opened the potential for further turmoil: Morales has called on his supporters to take to the streets to demand his eligibility. Over the last week his followers have blockaded some of the main roads around the country, adding to a sense of crisis as merchants and truckers rise up in outrage over surging food prices and severe fuel shortages.

Morales, who governed Bolivia from 2006 to 2019, has been holed up in the country’s tropics for months, surrounded by fiercely loyal coca-farmers, as Arce’s government seeks his arrest on charges relating to his sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl.

A constitutional court filled with judges beholden to Arce has disputed the legality of Morales’ fourth candidacy and barred him from the contest.

"The constitutional court acts like a sniper … restricting and enabling electoral participation upon request," he said in response to his disqualification. "The order is clear: Hand over the government to the right and legitimize the election with negotiated candidates who will protect their backs."

Morales, whose own loyalists packed the same court when he was president, points to an earlier court ruling that paved the way for his 2019 presidential campaign, that said it would violate his human rights to stop him running. Morales’ bid that year for an unprecedented fourth term ultimately sparked mass protests and led to his resignation and brief self-exile.

The conservative opposition to MAS is also fractured, with at least three right-of-center candidates vying for the presidency and no clear frontrunner.

All of them are little-known abroad but well-known within Bolivia, where they have run for president or served in government in the past: Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga, former president from 2001-2002, Samuel Doria Medina, a former cement tycoon and planning minister, and Manfred Reyes Villa, the mayor of Bolivia’s major central city of Cochabamba.

Quiroga and Doria Medina promoted privatizations of state-run companies in the 1990s before MAS took over.