In a power struggle with former leader Evo Morales, who was declared the sole candidate for the party’s primary elections later this year, Bolivian President Luis Arce was ousted from the ruling party on Wednesday.
The MAS party said that Arce “expelled himself” from the party by skipping this week’s party congress, which was intended to set up a primary election in December to choose its presidential nominee.
The party’s leader Morales has declared his intention to run for office once more in 2025, further separating himself from his erstwhile protégé and comrade Arce.
Morales, the first Indigenous president of Bolivia, enjoyed high popularity before attempting to circumvent the constitution and run for re-election in 2019.
Although he won the election, he was compelled to leave the nation after violent riots and resign. After his ally Arce was elected president in October 2020, he came back.
Since then, a power struggle between the two men has intensified, and Morales has criticized the government more frequently, accusing it of corruption, supporting drug trafficking, and excluding him from official positions.
Aside from Arce, 28 MAS party members loyal to the president were also expelled by the party.
MAS also modified its statutes so that only those who have been members for at least 10 years can run for president a condition which excludes Arce.
The party’s decisions will have to be ratified by electoral authorities. Election laws require all parties to hold a primary election, even if there is only one candidate.
Arce said in the run-up to the congress that he would not attend due to what he called the lack of representation of social organizations.
Arce has not said whether he plans to run for president in the next election.
Arce’s Justice Minister Ivan Lima has said Bolivia’s Constitutional Court must decide whether Morales is legally allowed to run again for what would be a fourth term, interrupted by Arce’s five years in office.
The constitution allows two consecutive terms, however Morales managed to run for a third term in 2014 after the top court ruled his first term did not count, as a new constitution had come into effect during that time.
A referendum to seek yet another term in office was denied in 2017, however the top court argued this was a violation of Morales’s human rights, opening the way to his last contentious bid.
