The protesters demand the resignation of the magistrates who extended their terms and the holding of judicial elections, which were to be held last year, but were postponed due to obstacles in the Legislative power. Meanwhile, former President Morales denies being behind the protests, but supports them.
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The blockades this January 22 affect two sections of the Cochabamba-Santa Cruz Interdepartmental Highway, another two of the old highway between these two cities and kilometer 90 of the Cochabamba-Sucre highway, and they occur during the national holiday, when the country celebrates 15 years of the founding of the Plurinational State.
The Santa Cruz-Cochabamba trunk is the main road artery for the transportation of merchandise for export.
activated coca growers
The closure of roads will remain indefinitely, mainly in the center of the country, where Morales has control of the powerful coca plantations, in a new chapter of the power confrontation between the former president and the current president Luis Arce for the leadership of the party of Government, Movement towards Socialism (MAS).
Government Minister Eduardo Del Castillo Del Carpio offered a report on the state of the roads, which he indicated have 25 blocking points, and referred to the actions of the protesters as “extreme measures only to satisfy the personal appetites of a subject.” and his entourage, to the detriment of the economy, and of everyone.”
Meanwhile, Arce led the celebrations for the fifteenth anniversary of the establishment of the Plurinational State, which granted recognition, autonomy and decentralized character to the regions that make up the country, and warned about a “new right, which due to personal and electoral ambitions is weaken the foundations” of the nation.
Every January 22 the founding of the Plurinational State is remembered. For the first time, an indigenous person assumed the Presidency, at a time when the State was going through a serious crisis and the Republic was a threat that did not represent the great majorities.
Today we remember the… pic.twitter.com/m3SKfvGj13
— Evo Morales Ayma (@evoespueblo) January 22, 2024
Morales, for his part, denied being behind the blockades, declared himself surprised by them and denounced that Arce and his government are trying to involve him, although he showed his solidarity with the protesters.
Delayed elections
The Plurinational Constitutional Court issued a ruling last December concluding that indefinite reelection was not a human right, thereby frustrating the intentions of Morales, who was president from 2006 to 2019, to run for a fourth term.
In a decision issued simultaneously, the Court extended the mandate of the magistrates of the majority of the country's high courts to avoid a power vacuum, given that the debate around the suitability of the nominees in the Legislative Assembly had been blocked by complaints of irregularities in the preselection and in the regulations for the election.
The measure implies that the magistrates will remain in office until 2025, if judicial elections are not held this year.
With EFE
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