LatinNews Daily - 12 November 2024

*Bolivia’s supreme electoral court (TSE) has confirmed that judicial elections scheduled for 15 December to pick judges for the constitutional court (TCP), supreme court (TSJ), agro-environmental court, and the judicial council, will go ahead. This follows a TCP ruling issued on 4 November that declared void the process to pick TSJ justices in the departments of Beni and Pando, and to pick TCP justices in Pando, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, Beni, and Tarija, casting doubt on the process. The TSE’s decision is a boost for former president Evo Morales (2006-2019) given that the election of new TCP justices is crucial to his plan to overturn the presidential term limits preventing him from seeking the presidency in next year’s elections. It comes as on 8 November the TCP issued a new ruling barring Morales from seeking a fourth term by establishing firm limits on presidential terms, ruling that all elected officials can only serve a maximum of two terms, whether consecutive or non-consecutive. The top court’s latest decision reaffirms a TCP ruling issued in December 2023, which overturns a 2017 ruling that had maintained that indefinite re-election was a human right. The 8 November decision was in response to a request for the 2023 ruling to be clarified from an opposition legislator, José Carlos Gutiérrez. Despite the TCP ruling, supporters of Morales, who is locked in a power struggle with President Luis Arce over control of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) and its presidential nomination, have nonetheless ratified his candidacy, at an emergency summit held in Cochabamba department over the 9-10 November weekend.