MAS prevails and excludes 2019 actors in selection for Defensor

Pablo Peralta M. / La Paz

In a marathon session, the majority of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) prevailed in the Mixed Commission of the Legislative Constitution by approving the regulations for the selection of the Ombudsman, with the clause that excludes the actors of 2019.

That commission is made up of 13 legislators, nine from the MAS and four from the opposition. After the session, the draft regulation and call was sent to the plenary session of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly (ALP).

Although the MAS took into account some adjustments suggested by the opposition, the same did not happen with the controversial numeral 15 of article 8 of the draft regulation, which provides that a cause of ineligibility will be “not having participated or been involved in acts of governments military or de facto, nor in the rupture of the constitutional order”.

“They have not wanted anything to move at all,” the deputy of the Citizen Community (CC) Gabriela Ferrel, a member of the commission, told Page Seven regarding that point.

“What they want is to insist on their 2019 coup script, when we know that citizens came out to defend democracy,” Ferrel said.

After the failed elections of October 20, 2019, there were protests and roadblocks led by activists, university students, civic groups and politicians, among others. A turning point occurred on November 10 of that year, when Evo Morales resigned from the presidency. The MAS leader resigned hours after the Organization of American States made public the preliminary report of the election audit and after the discontent generated in sectors of the population by the findings of that work carried out by that organization at the invitation of the then government. . On November 11, Morales left the country and Añez assumed the presidency a day later.

Deputy Gualberto Arispe, head of the MAS bench and designer of the regulation, indicated that this clause is not only related to those who participated in the transition government, but also reaches those who mobilized at the end of 2019.

“I believe that politicians have mobilized and we are talking about personalities who have a long history, especially in defense of human rights, for this position,” said the legislator in this regard.

Cecilia Requena, a CC senator, indicated that this clause could be used against those who demonstrated and acted against “an election whose integrity was questioned by international bodies convened by the MAS government and which were annulled by the President himself, and then by the Legislative of masista majority; or against those who helped resolve the serious power vacuum.”

The blue party also rejected in the session of the Mixed Commission of the Constitution the suggestion of the opposition to incorporate a weighting mechanism, in article 17, referring to the evaluation of merits of the applicants.

“Another aspect that we have observed is in relation to article 17, which tells us about the evaluation, the selection criteria, and unfortunately there is no weighting. If this weighting does not exist to evaluate, how are we going to get an Ombudsman? They indicate ‘sound criticism’, but obviously sound criticism is different from mine than that of another deputy and that is why it is necessary to have a weighting, because for me academic meritocracy may be worth more, for another it may be worth more work experience and for another, whether or not he had contact with the public,” said Ferrel.

Rubén Gutiérrez, president of the Mixed Constitutional Commission, limited himself to pointing out that in the debate around five articles of the document could be modified.

“According to what has been debated and collected the proposals presented by the CC bench, it has also been incorporated in terms of meritocratic evaluation, knowledge of the contents of the Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights and other international instruments (…), as well as in relation to the degrees of kinship that we have adjusted up to the fourth degree of consanguinity”, assured the legislator.