Bolivia’s longtime socialist former leader, Evo Morales, reappeared Thursday in the tropical political stronghold after an inexplicable absence of nearly seven weeks, endorsing candidates for upcoming regional elections and quieting rumors that he fled the country in the wake of the U.S. capture of his ally, former Venezuelan President Nicol Maduro.
Morales’ fate has been hanging for weeks on how little the Andean nation knows about what is happening in the remote Chapare region, where the former president has spent the past year evading an arrest warrant on human-trafficking charges, and fears of a future foreign escape by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The media outlet of Morales’ coca-growing union, Radio Causachun Coca, released footage of Morales smiling in dark sunglasses as he arrived by tractor at a stadium in the central Bolivian town of Chimore to address his supporters.
Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, who served from 2006 until his ouster in 2019 and then self-imposed, explained that he suffered from chikungunya, a mosquito-borne disease with no treatment for fever and severe joint pain, and had problems that “surprised me”.
“Take care of yourself against chikungunya – it’s very serious,” said Morales, 66, looking much frailer than at past appearances.
He dismissed rumors fueled by local politicians and fueled by social media that he would try to flee the country, vowing to stay in Bolivia despite threats of arrest under conservative President Rodrigo Paz, who last October ended the rule of Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism party.
Some media said, “Evo will leave, Evo will run away. I said clearly: I am not going. I will stay with the people to protect the homeland.”
Paz’s recent efforts to restore diplomatic ties with the US and bring back the Drug Enforcement Administration — some 17 years after Morales expelled American anti-drug agents from the Andean nation while cozying up to China, Russia, Cuba and Iran — have dented support in the coca-growing region.
Paz confirmed Thursday that he will meet Trump in Miami on March 7 for a summit that will bring together Latin American leaders politically mobilized as the Trump administration seeks to counter Chinese influence and assert American dominance in the region.
Before announcing the candidates he will endorse in Bolivia’s municipal and regional elections next month, Morales launched into a long speech recalling his once-frequent tirade against US imperialism.
“This is a geopolitical campaign on an international scale,” he said of Trump’s attempt to revive the Monroe Doctrine from 1823 to reassert American dominance in the Western Hemisphere. “They want to eliminate every left-wing party in Latin America.”
