Declaration rejecting the electoral proscriptions in Bolivia (Evo Morales), Ecuador (Rafael Correa) and the interference in future Venezuelan elections

From the CLACSO Working Group "Legal Critique and Sociopolitical Conflicts"We express our rejection of the measures taken against Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador by the courts of their respective countries, which disqualify their candidacies for the upcoming elections.

In the case of Rafael Correa, whose political rights were stripped by Ecuadorian courts, his candidacy for vice president was linked to presidential candidate Andrés Arauz's candidacy for the elections on February 7. In an expedited ruling that took only seventeen days, when the process typically takes months, the Court of Cassation completed the lawfare and persecution against the former president and other former officials of the Citizen Revolution. The Ecuadorian government of Lenin Moreno is once again using persecution to justify its neoliberal policies, which represent a return to a past the country had overcome.

Evo Morales, for his part, was running for senator for the department of Cochabamba, but the Constitutional Court disqualified his candidacy, arguing that he did not have two years of residency in Bolivia prior to the election nor a registered address in the country. This is clearly a proscriptive maneuver against the former president, who suffered a coup d'état last November that forced him to seek political asylum abroad. This racist coup enabled fierce repression against the Bolivian people who took to the streets to demand the restoration of democracy, which has been severely damaged since the OAS, under the leadership of Luis Almagro, gave the green light to the coup process.

There is no democracy with proscriptions; therefore, we demand that the judicial and political authorities of Bolivia and Ecuador respect popular sovereignty so that the people's will is what determines their representatives through the vote. These processes demonstrate how concentrated power and elites use the law, the state, and institutions to eliminate popular, progressive, or leftist political movements in Latin America.

Finally, we reject the genocidal blockade and persistent siege against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which is preparing—despite the difficulties—to fulfill the constitutional mandate of holding parliamentary elections next December, under continuous foreign threats to disregard the legitimate right of the people to decide, by imposing figures malleable to imperial interests.

10th September 2020
CLACSO Working Group
Legal critique and sociopolitical conflicts

This statement expresses the position of the CLACSO Working Groups Legal critique and sociopolitical conflicts and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.