In a self-criticism of the events that led to the 2019 crisis, the current Bolivian ambassador to the OAS, Héctor Arce, confirmed that it was a mistake to seek the re-election of Evo Morales at the time and that Bolivia would have saved many. Situations “when the ex-president has decided not to run for office.
“Of course, we in Bolivia would have saved many of these situations if the then President, President Evo Morales, had made the decision not to run and to ensure that the Movement for Socialism has other candidates, as it eventually did. ” in the 2020 elections and achieved this overwhelming result, “said Arce in an interview with ERBOL’s La Mañana en Directo program.
He recalled that Evo Morales himself had already recognized that it was a mistake to be re-elected in 2019.
Héctor Arce attributed the 2020 election result to “the qualification of the Bolivian people for a process of change that has an unprecedented leadership, which has an undeniable leadership that is indisputable in the figure of President Evo Morales”.
He noted that even Morales may have decided not to run in 2019 and later return as president.
“Unfortunately (Morales) made the mistake of running again instead of making a change that would have allowed him to return because our Constitution allows. President Evo Morales could have returned and re-elected president in 2025,” he said.
The former Justice Minister also reiterated that “the constitution must be respected in its essence and essence”, although he made it clear that with this position he does not want to criticize the courts of Bolivia and other countries that have ruled in the same way on re-election.
Evo Morales was reinstated in 2019 thanks to a ruling by the Constitutional Court, despite a referendum confirming the validity of Article 168 of the Constitution, which limits the number of re-elections to one.
Regarding the advisory opinion that will determine whether indefinite re-election is a right protected in the San Jose Pact, Arce promised to refer to the case when the resolution is known, but assumed it would not relates to past situations, but forward.
After the 2019 crisis, Héctor Arce was one of the Evo Morales employees who sought refuge in the residence of the Mexican embassy in La Paz. He described the situation as “hell” and asserted that he was one of those persecuted by what he called what he called a “de facto government” and human rights abuses, even though he was refused safe passage on humanitarian grounds.
Héctor Arce claimed that there was no election fraud or “malicious manipulation” in the 2019 election, as stated in the OAS audit report. To back up his claim, he cited reports from bodies refuting the agency’s study.
“The Organization of American States’ false auditors who did political work,” he added.
He stressed that he considered Luis Almagro to be one of those responsible for the events in Senkata and Sacaba and that the OAS Secretary General’s stance to demand a minute’s silence for the victims was an extreme that convinced him more that there was no electoral fraud Year 2019.
