AP
–
Bolivian charismatic and longtime former president Evo Morales told The Associated Press on Saturday he doesn’t know what to do about the threats of right-wing presidential candidates to arrest him if he seized power.
From his base in the tropical region of Chapare, Bolivia, where he has been holed up for months under the protection of his stubborn supporters, he has repeatedly called on voters to refuse to vote in Sunday’s high-stake elections that rebel against a race that has been barred due to the controversial constitutional court ruling.
“What are we going to do? I don’t know either,” he said in response to questions about how he would respond if either right-wing frontrunner, multi-millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina or former president Jorge “Chuto” Quiroga won the presidential election and fulfilled the threat of arresting him. “I’m in the crosshairs of the Right Empire.”
Morales, 65, was charged with human trafficking last year and was accused of impregnating a 15-year-old girl while she was president.
He does not completely deny that he has a sexual relationship with a minor girl, but he explains that he has politically motivated the accusation. The judge issued an arrest order after he and his former finance minister, President Lewis Earth, argued over the control of their longtime movement over the Socialist Party.
As a result of their bitter power struggle, the party split. As the Bolivian economy is at its worst crisis in nearly 40 years, the MAS party collapse has given right-wing opposition the best shot since Morales first came to power in 2006 with the ballot box victory.
“Look, it’s an election that’s not legal, it’s an election that’s not legitimate, it’s an election that’s not legitimate, there’s no indigenous movement, there’s no popular movement,” said Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president.
He said the Nur and Boyd votes were “not merely a vote for our political movement.”
“It’s a protest vote, an angry vote.”
He humiliated Doria Medina and Kiroga. He both ran for president three times before, losing at least twice to Morales as the “eternal loser.”
Citing voters’ widespread disillusionment with options, he expressed confidence that election outcomes would reveal an unusually high percentage of invalid votes.
“No one is going to win. It’s a sweet vote, a vote for Evo,” he said, speaking in a third party.
