More protests prepared in Bolivia after Morales OK’d to run for re-election

Sectors rejecting the possible re-election of Bolivian President Evo Morales warned Wednesday that they will intensify their protests after the decision by election authorities to approve the president’s candidacy in the primaries prior to the 2019 election.

The civic committees in eight of the country’s nine regions ratified the call for a nationwide strike for Thursday, when citizens’ collectives that began marching to the capital on the weekend are scheduled to arrive in La Paz to demand that the constitutional limit of two consecutive terms in office for the president be respected.

“It’s going to be a more forceful strike. The people are going to take to the streets to be heard,” the vice president of the civic committee in the Santa Cruz region, Luis Fernando Camacho, warned in remarks to EFE.

Camacho said that what began in 2017 with the Constitutional Court ruling giving the green light to Morales re-election “was cemented yesterday as a crime” with the Supreme Election Tribunal (TSE) decision to approve his candidacy for the primaries.

At a meeting held late Tuesday, the TSE decided to approve the candidacies of several candidates - including Morales and Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, for the March 27 primaries.

The government has announced that now it will focus on campaigning for the general elections, scheduled for October 2019.

The Bolivian Bishops Conference issued a communique calling for the demonstrations to be held “peacefully, without confrontations ... or violent attitudes.”