Bolivian President Luis Arce Catacora announced on May 13 that he will not run for re-election in this year’s Aug. 17 presidential elections and called on former President Evo Morales to do the same. Although the Plurinational Constitutional Court has ruled that Morales may not run for a third term in office, the former President insists that he will be a candidate no matter what, and is mobilizing his large base of indigenous and peasant supporters toward that end.
Against a backdrop of extreme political polarization and economic crisis, Arce explained that he was withdrawing his candidacy so as not to be “a factor of division.” He, Morales, and newly-announced candidate Andronico Rodriguez, the 35-year-old Senate president, represent the “left,” while there are several right-wing candidates who don’t appear willing to unite around one individual. Arce called on all “popular and democratic forces” to unite behind Rodriguez, who would be the candidate of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party, which ruled Bolivia for almost two decades, before it split between supporters of Morales and Arce. Bad feelings between the groups are intense.
