December 25, 2024, 4:00 AM
December 25, 2024, 4:00 AM
Against all odds, the “favorite” candidates of the Government and those most questioned by the opposition and citizens, among them Israel Campero and Marvin Molina, were postponed before public scrutiny and did not even manage to be substitutes in the Court Plurinational Constitutional Court (TCP) and in the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), respectively.
From the Legislature they point out that this fact is a direct message to the Government and a “punishment vote” for all the actions that both committed, such as, for example, pprohibit the Legislative Assembly from questioning Luis Arce’s ministers, or “negotiate problems” in the Judicial Branch.
On the other hand, for a former TCP magistrate, it is not of great relevance that Campero and Molina were not elected, since other less media and less controversial candidates, but with the same political inclination to the MAS, won the election, which translates into that the Government continues to manage the judicial system.
The “postponed”
The lawyer, Israel Ramiro Campero, former member and former president of the First Constitutional Chamber of La Paz, aspired to be a TCP magistrate, but only obtained 9.6% of the vote and came in fourth place among the male candidates.
Campero was shielded in the preselection process by the MAS majority that rejected the seven challenges against him and qualified him as one of the “strongest” candidates. One of Campero’s most controversial measures was to suspend constitutional powers through an amparo of the assembly members to question eight ministers of State. Since that ruling, no minister has been questioned or audited by Parliament again.
Another of his measures was to order the TSE to go as observers to the Arcista congress that was held in May in El Alto, despite the refusal of the collegiate entity because the call did not comply with the MAS regulations.
Potosí lawyer Marvin Molina, who was on the Judicial Council for six years and eight months, sought to stay for another six years as a TSJ magistrate, but was left out with 30.8% of the votes.
Molina is remembered for an audio of his in which he is heard coordinating spaces of power in the Judicial Branch in Potosí, with the MAS deputy, Antonio Colque. Both admitted the fact and the action cost him the presidency of the Judicial Council.
The reactions
For Deputy Urquidi, the results of the judicial election represent a “clear message” from citizens to the Government of Luis Arce to tell them that they are no longer willing to accept that they continue to subject justice to their political interests.
“But it is also a clear message to the self-prorogators and to the people who are in the TCP illegally and unconstitutionally and who have taken on the task of breaking the institutionality and blocking the Legislative Assembly and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the people “They have realized that this group does great damage to the country’s institutions,” Urquidi said.
Meanwhile, the MAS senator, William Torrez, stated that the population gave them a “vote punishment for their poor performance as authorities” that reflects the sanction of the citizens.
“Campero has been tremendously functional to the Arce Government, he was a member of terrible performance, he violated the Constitution. “This citizen took the audacity to prohibit a State body from fulfilling its obligations,” Torrez stated.
However, these results are not enough, for Torrez, since five of the nine extended continue in their positions and “will continue to hinder the restoration of the Judicial Branch.”
For the former TCP magistrate, Marco Antonio Baldivieso, the defeat of these characters does not imply that Masismo is outside the judicial system, since candidates Less visible and not so evident, but with the same political inclination, they were elected.
“There was a MAS strategy, both evista and arcista, to have several candidates. What happened in 2017 and 2011 has been repeated: the majority of the candidates who have won the elections have been supported by the MAS, whether they are evistas or arcistas. The MAS has once again managed to win in various pockets of the justice system,” Baldivieso told EL DEBER.