Morales Announced Party Candidates Until End of Month

The former Bolivian president Evo Morales announced Saturday that leaders of his party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) will travel to Buenos Aires, Argentina on Dec. 29 to debate and call a meeting on the border with Bolivia, where they will elect their candidates for the next elections in 2020.

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Morales spoke for the first time with a Bolivian media since on Nov. 10 a coup d'état was carried out against his government, forcing him to leave the country.

"Here in Buenos Aires we are going to have the meeting on Sunday 29 this month to issue a call giving place and date, here in Argentina, and there we will elect the candidate for the Presidency and perhaps the Vice President also, in a great meeting we are going to hold," he told the Bolivian radio station, San Gabriel.

"We know that next year the elections will be called and the MAS will prepare to participate with a candidate who will mainly transmit unity. We are debating the names of the pre-candidates, we hope to reach consensus," Morales said.

In another interview with a local Argentinian media, Radio Network,​​​​​ the leader of the MAS party estimated that "at least 1000 leaders will attend" and that the Argentinian government will help with the issue of security.

"We call the leaders of the MAS of the 9 departments to a meeting on December 29 in Buenos Aires, to evaluate and organize the big meeting where we will elect our candidates for the next elections."

According to Argentinian media, the event would take place in Oran or Salvador Mazza, two localities in the Salta region, close to the border with Bolivia.

On the situation in his country, Morales considered that "what hurts the most from the coup are the dead" and the "destruction of the economy." He referred to the OAS report on the Oct. 20 elections, and considered that "it does not speak of fraud but of irregularities," while stating that opposition to his political project is "the hatred against the Indigenous community and the industrialization of the lithium" which he promoted as president. "Here the problem is the Indigenous vote," he said, and remarked that "the coup was to the lithium."

Regarding the possible candidates, he said that "there are many" and  mentioned the names of former Foreign Ministers, Diego Pary and David Choquehuanca, the former Minister of Economy, Luis Arce and the young politician Andronico Rodriguez, according to the interview with the Bolivian radio station.

Morales was appointed campaign manager of his party, a task he exercises from Argentina, where he arrived last Dec.12 and asked to be accepted as a political refugee.

The indigenous leader resigned on Nov. 10 after protests that accused him of alleged fraud in the elections of Oct. 20 and which were led by the right-wing opposition, the civic committees and which ended in a coup d'etat after pressure from the armed forces and the intervention of the Organization of American States (OAS).