Bolivia's President Evo Morales will run for re-election in October, the ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) announced July 14. But the opposition accuses Morales of defying the constitution, which allows a president two consecutive terms in office. Morales was first elected in 2006 and then again in 2009. The term limit was adopted in 2009, with the constitutional reform overseen by Morales himself. In 2013 the Plurinational Constitutional Trbunal (TCP [5]) ruled that his first term should not be counted as it preceded the new constitution [6]. Morales is the clear frontrunner, polling at about 44%. His nearest rival, cement tycoon Samuel Doria Medina of the Unidad Demócrata (UD), trails by almost 30 points. Morales, anticipating a contentious campaign, appealed to MAS supporters for restraint, saying "I ask you all not to enter into a dirty war." (La Razón [7], La Paz, July 17; Los Tiempos [8], Cochabamba, July 16; EFE [9], July 15; The Guardian [10], July 14)
As Morales made the appeal, the MAS senatorial candidate for Cochabamba department, Adolfo Mendoza, announced he is dropping out of the race, citing threats of violence against him and his family. The threats came amid a public exchange of insults between Vice President Álvaro García Linera and the UD senatorial candidate for Cochabamba, Arturo Murillo. (Eju! [11], Santa Cruz, July 19)
Indigenous leaders from the departments of La Paz, Oruro, Cochabamba, Potosí and Chuquisaca meanwhile announced that they will begin a hunger strike outside the doors of TCP in Sucre, where Bolivia's judiciary is based, to demand their inclusion in the reform of department-level legal codes now underway. Representatives of the Qhara Qhara, Yampara, Quillaca and Chuwi indigenous peoples began the vigil on July 15, and said they wold begin fasting a week later if they were not given a voice in the process. TCP president Efrén Choque responded that the judicial body can only decalre the "autonomous statutes" unconstitutional. The statutes are being worked out by Bolivia's congress in conjunction with the new Departmental Assemblies established by the Autonomy and Decentralization Law [12] passed five years ago. (ABI [13], July 18; Erbol [14], July 17; Los Tiempos [15], April 21; ANF [16], Sept. 29, 2013)
