A ruling in Bolivia upheld a ruling by an electoral court prohibiting former President Evo Morales from running for the Senate.
Morales sought to run for the Senate in the central province of Cochabamba.
But the court ruled in February that he had met the requirement of having resided in the province for the two years leading up to the elections.
Morales left Bolivia in November and lately lives in Argentina.
Evo Morales President of Bolivia for almost 14 years, from 2006 to 2019, after winning 3 consecutive elections.
In October 2019, he ran for the fourth consecutive term for the presidency. Until then, Bolivian leaders had been limited in the number of times they could apply for high-level positions.
But Morales had been suggesting for years that those mandate limits be removed.
In 2016, he asked Bolivians to vote on the factor in a referendum. The result was a “no” to the abolition of mandate limits.
But Morales took the matter to the Constitutional Court, which overulled the outcome of a referendum and oversteerd term limits, allowing him to run for president in the 2019 election.
He officially declared the winner of the 2019 election, but protests broke out when the vote count stopped for 24 hours, prompting accusations of vote manipulation.
Protests continued for weeks, fueled by anger at ignoring the referendum result and accusations of vote manipulation, and the head of the army and police joined Morales’ resignation requests.
He resigned on November 10 and soon after went to Mexico, from where he then moved to Argentina.
He said that the moment he left, he feared his life would be in danger.
A resumption of the disputed general elections postponed until May 2020, but postponed twice in October due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Morales did renounce his electoral ambitions and registered as a candidate for the Senate of Cochabamba province.
In February, the Supreme Electoral Court disqualified Mr. Morales, claiming that he did meet the residency needs because he lived in Argentina.
Morales appealed the decision, arguing that he was still officially registered in Cochabamba and that he did not live in Argentina by choice, but out of fear of his safety.
The government of Interim President Jeanine Ez, who has been in force since Morales vehemently opposes the former leader and said she was looking for him “to be brought to justice. “
He accused him of “terrorism and genocide,” saying he had orchestrated 12 days of barricades that had led hospitals to run out of supplies.
In the past he had been accused of “terrorism and sedition” in connection with the riots that followed last year’s disputed election, and the Deputy Minister of Justice filed a complaint against Morales on allegations of rape.
A court in Cochabamba is lately evaluating the complaint and has 20 days to determine whether the case is well-founded enough to continue.
Morales has denied all the accusations and says he is the victim of a political vendetta through the interim government.
Morales cannot appeal the decision that excludes him from elections. He said on Twitter that he would comply with the judge’s ruling, arguing that his precedence is that “people come out of the crisis. “
He said he was convinced that “the time will come when others will govern themselves in a democratic and nonviolent manner. “
A member of Morales’ party, economist Luis Arce, runs for president and in opinion polls is the favorite.
Ms. Oez is also a candidate, however, the polls recommend that she be Oez’s main rival. Maple, Carlos Mesa.
The election is scheduled for October 18.