Supporters of Bolivia’s ousted president Evo Morales take to the streets

Supporters of former Bolivian president Evo Morales will organise a demonstration in Argentina’s and Bolivia’s respective capitals today, after Morales announced his party’s candidates for the upcoming May 3 elections on Sunday.

Morales was forced to resign on November 10 after opposition parties alleged that October elections were rigged in his favour to avoid a run-off. He claims that his ousting was the result of a US backed coup d’etat to access the country’s lithium resources. Interim President Jeanine Anez denies any coup, but Morales did have to resign after the police and military pulled their support.

Morales has since left Bolivia for asylum and will not contest the elections himself.

Meanwhile, Anez’s foreign policy has shifted away from supporting Morales’s leftist allies in Cuba and Venezuela, and towards closer alignment with the US. Bolivia’s economic negotiations over gas exports with Mexico and Argentina—both of which are governed by leftist leaders—have also suffered after Bolivia expelled the Mexican ambassador.

With 15 weeks to go until elections, polls show Morales’s party gathering 21% popular support, while the leading opposition candidate Carlos Mesa is currently polling 14%. Morales’s public spending policies, which have tripled GDP per capita since 2005, are likely to win him favour in the medium term.

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