Evo Morales will be part of the 2020 elections

On Saturday, December 7, the Movement To Socialism, MAS, in Spanish, party of the former president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, held an expanded Congress attended by various political movements that make up the party. Among the issues discussed, it was voted to appoint Morales as a fundamental part of the next presidential elections.

For the 2020 elections, Morales will be the MAS campaign manager and, although they have not yet decided on the key that will represent them, it will be the former president who will guide them. The representation of Morales is given as a way of exculpating him for the alleged fraud declared by his opponents, and reaffirms the confidence of the members of the party with which he was his representative for almost 14 years.

The ex-president thanked for the confidence of his party through his Twitter account. “Sisters and brothers, your unity, energy and strength excites me. I will return and we will return millions soon to the government with our Democratic and Cultural Revolution”, he said. Likewise, through his account he has lashed out at the “coupist right”, ensuring that his party will recover the democracy that was taken away from them, as Morales argues his resignation was due to a coup d'etat.

After the news was announced that he would be the campaign leader, Morales said from Cuba, where he has been since Friday, December 6 for medical treatment, he will return to Bolivia. "At any time, whatever they say, whatever they do, I will be in Bolivia to face the elections and win as we have always done", replied El Universal.

At the meeting, held in the Cochabamba coca grower enclave, it was also determined that the party must undergo a restructuring in which it is ensured that its members are committed and aligned with the same cause. According to the leaders, MAS goes through a critical situation after which they called coup d'etat, so they must be reorganized and the unit must prevail. According to TeleSur TV, the president of the party, Rimer Ágreda, said that "a vote will be given to all members who have betrayed the party, and said they will not accept people who are not part of the social movements."

Read also: Evo Morales, traveling to Cuba

2020 elections

Although the exact date is not yet known, the interim government claimed elections would be held in March 2020. The interim president, Jeanine Áñez, has worked together with the OAS, following the organization's requests, to conduct elections that allow to restore people's confidence in the country's democracy.

March is a date that is within the limits declared by the Constitution for these cases, but they will have to wait for the formation of a new Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE, in Spanish), which is the authority responsible for the transparency of the results, in order to proceed to make the first round.

For now there are no confirmed candidates, but some names are beginning to sound. One of the main figures is Carlos Mesa, the opposition candidate for Morales, who had had the highest vote after the former president in the October 20 elections. Another name that sounds is that of Chi Yung Chang, who was also part of the elections in October.

Meanwhile, MAS's opponents continue to be divided into two main groups: there are those who believe they must unite to ensure they have more followers than Evo Morales's party, while others say Morales's resignation has caused a break in that party that will prevent him to recover for the 2020 elections.

The Morales party, MAS, continues to have great representation and welcome in the Bolivian people, as it has tried to reinvindicate a part of the population that was previously discriminated to a greater degree. Therefore, the figure chosen by the party to represent them would still have opportunities in the elections. To prevent MAS from continuing in the presidency, opponents will need to unite to seek a strong option.