Former President Evo Morales returned to Bolivia on Monday for the first time in a year after being forced into exile following a failed attempt at a fourth term in office.
Morales has been in Argentina since December 2019 after first being granted asylum in Mexico. Hundreds of supporters gathered at Argentina’s border with Bolivia to celebrate his return, according to the Associated Press. Argentina’s leftist President Alberto Fernandez appeared as well, telling Morales, “I am going to miss you.”
Morales returned to Bolivia following his Movement Toward Socialism party’s victory in the redo of the 2019 election. This year’s election reaffirms the annulled results of the 2019 election. In last year’s election, the Organization of American States, an international coalition of all 35 independent states of the Americas, announced that identified inconsistencies within the polling data “drastically modifie[d] the fate of the election and generate[d] a loss of confidence in the electoral process,” despite concerns of the analysis’s accuracy.
The OAS’s recommendation that the country redo the election led to protests on both sides of the political spectrum. Morales left the country in exile, and his government resigned.
After his MTS party declared victory, Morales said, “We’ve recovered our democracy.” His hand-picked successor, Luis Arce, was sworn in as the third president of Bolivia on Sunday after winning 55% of the national vote and retained its control of Bolivia’s legislature.
Morales faces charges of treason from prosecutors lodged during the interim government, accusing him of inciting violent protests that restricted the flow of food supplies to Bolivians. Human Rights Watch, an international nongovernment organization, said the charges against him were likely politically motivated — but accuses Morales’s government of similar abuses. There are no active warrants for Morales’s arrest, and it is unlikely his successor would choose to prosecute the former president.
Morales has not said whether he intends to seek an active role in the new administration or the MTS. Arce, who has yet to announce his Cabinet, has “downplayed suggestions that Morales would play a major role in his administration,” according to the Associated Press.
