Bolivia's Evo Morales Rallies Supporters for 4th Term in Office

Bolivian President Evo Morales rallied his supporters in the city of Cochabamba for his reelection bid in 2019. If victorious, it would be his fourth term in office.

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"Brothers and sisters, a coup is still being attempted by these gentlemen of the Chilean oligarchs, together with the Bolivian right and the American Embassy, with the capitalist system of the American empire,” Morales told the crowd, according to Reuters.

He added that these elements “don't want economic stability, nor for political continuity to continue developing as Bolivians” and that it's vital to “identify the internal and external enemies. We have identified those who sell out the homeland, those racists and those who discriminate."

Bolivia's first indigenous head of state directly addressed the “new generation,” telling them that Bolivia “was once a dictatorship with three presidents in 24 hours. That was Bolivia then, which the United States had ruined.”

In November, the country's Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal ruled in favor of allowing all elected officials to continue to run for office indefinitely. The decision was based on the judges' interpretation of political rights as defined by the American Convention on Human Rights, according to the North American Congress on Latin America, NACLA.

In effect, the decision allows Morales to seek a fourth presidential term.

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Since he took office in 2006, Bolivia has undergone a dramatic restructuring of its socio-political agenda. After nationalizing its natural resource sector, liberating itself from foreign magnates, the country has improved leaps and bounds in terms of education, healthcare, social security and the reduction of poverty and chronic child malnutrition.

Once known as one of most underdeveloped nation's in the region, the country is now a leader in terms of its gross domestic product, which is projected to hit 4 percent in 2017, according to the International Monetary Fund, IMF, World Bank and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. In June 2017, Morales stressed that Bolivia had achieved complete independence from the IMF and World Bank, which for many years dictated the economic destiny of the landlocked, South American country.