After the resignation, departure from the country and asylum in Mexico of former President Evo Morales in 2019, several authorities also went to other countries and former ministers close to former president Juan Ramón Quintana, Héctor Arce and Javier Zavaleta they took refuge in the Mexican embassy in La Paz. In this regard, the former official senator Omar Aguilar told EL DEBER that if the then legislators “also got under the cot”, Luis Arce Catacora would not have become Head of State.
The former legislator demanded that the MAS recognize that it was the Legislative Assembly of 2019-2020 that returned democracy to the countryeven gave the blue party the chance to return to power.
“We say to our friends from MAS and to all the Bolivian people: What was going to happen after Evo Morales and Álvaro García went to Mexico with Gabriela Montaño? Many went under his cot to hide. What was going to happen if the rest of the Assembly members hid? Well, surely today Luis Arce would not be ‘the president’. Perhaps the former de facto president Jeanine Añez would not be in jail and perhaps she would continue to govern the country, ”he questioned.
He also assured that those who restored stability to the country were the senators and deputies, both the ruling party and the opposition who worked on the laws to direct the 2020 elections, after the political crisis of 2019 and the annulment of the general elections due to the alleged electoral fraud.
Regarding Aguilar’s opinions, the current MAS senator, Virginia Velasco, said that the parliamentarians who they directed the pacification of the country they had the mandate of the people as elected authorities and what they did was within their obligations according to the regulations.
“They were authorities elected by the people. They had to ensure sovereignty. There was a crisis and they had to respond to the people so that there would be peace, that there are no injuries and deaths, ”said the parliamentarian.
Along these lines, MAS senator Rubén Gutiérrez admitted that the Legislative Branch during the political crisis and the transitional government played its role. However, he asserted that Luis Arce ascended to the presidency “thanks to the Bolivian people” who recovered democracy and took to the streets to demand the holding of the 2020 general elections.
“The last definition has been thanks to the popular mobilization that forced the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to define a fixed date because the logic was to suspend the elections and prorogue in power and continue with the coup”, assured Gutiérrez to EL DEBER.
Luis Arce Catacora was inaugurated as President of Bolivia on November 8, 2020. On the other hand, former senator Aguilar stated that although there were coordination meetings with the Government of Jeanine Añez to direct the call for elections, those who worked on the norm were the members of the Legislature. Likewise, he clarified that the then president of the Senate, Eva Copa, participated in the promulgation due to a situation of “justice” and denied that this act means the recognition of Añez as president of the country.
BACKGROUND
LAW OF POSTPONEMENT
Due to the pandemic and despite the fact that the Election Law was enacted in 2019; In April 2020, the president of the Legislative Assembly, Eva Copa, promulgated the law to postpone the elections with observations from the opposition. Finally, the national vote was held on October 18, 2020 with three previous changes to the law and with new electoral members. Arce won at the polls with 55.1% of the votes.
