Bolivia: Inter-American Court rules that indefinite reelection is not a human right

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) has determined that “the ban on indefinite reelection is compatible with the American Convention on Human Rights.”

The Court’s “advisory opinion” was met with great interest and controversy in Bolivia, which remains afflicted by a serious political crisis triggered by the rejection of certain sectors of the population to Evo Morales’ 4th electoral dispute in 2019.

To get Morales to run at the time, despite the Constitution banning it, his party, the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) secured a Constitutional Court ruling that re-elections can take place indefinitely as it was a “human right”.

In doing so, the Bolivian court relied on its own interpretation of the Americas Convention, or Pact of San Jose. Now this interpretation has been refuted by the Inter-American Court, in charge of settling disputes over the Convention.

“Indefinite presidential reelection is not an autonomous right protected by the Americas Convention and the body of international human rights law,” states Advisory Opinion 28/21. It was requested by Colombian President Iván Duque in October 2019, primarily because of what was occurring in Bolivia at the time. But Nicaragua and Honduras have also relied on the San Jose Pact to extend their rulers’ re-election.

The ruling is justified by the democratic need to prevent majorities from remaining in power at the expense of minorities. “The enabling of indefinite presidential reelection is contrary to the principles of a representative democracy,” the opinion states. It considers that the ban “seeks to prevent persons who hold office by popular election from perpetuating themselves in the exercise of power.”

The Inter-American Court’s decision was the target of both praise and attacks from three fronts of the Bolivian political debate. Evo Morales declared that it was “a vague opinion (…) nowhere in the document is Evo and Bolivia mentioned.”

Furthermore, he tweeted that “the advisory opinion promoted by Duque, Colombia’s human rights infringer, is an attack by coup-plotter [Luis] Almagro and his right-wing accomplices to politically destabilize democracy.” “Since they could never beat us at the polls, they use the IAHR Court to justify their defeats,” he added.

Morales’ irritation against the Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General Luis Almagro stems from the fact that the organization audited the October 2019 elections (in which Evo Morales was re-elected for the 4th time) and found serious irregularities.

The OAS report led to the annulment of said elections and the convening of new ones, in which Morales was not allowed to participate. That is why Justice Minister Iván Lima, also a MAS militant, said that today Bolivia has no inconvenience with the Inter-American Court’s determination, because the indefinite re-election was annulled by the country after what happened in 2019. The Inter-American Court’s definitions are binding on all nations that signed the San Jose Pact.

The MAS party claims that the social unrest sparked by the electoral fraud allegation and the OAS audit was part of a coup d’état that ultimately overthrew President Morales with the participation of the Armed Forces and the Police.

The opposition supports the argument that it was a spontaneous protest against a “monumental fraud,” and although Evo Morales has stated that he is not thinking about the 2025 elections for the time being, he is considered the most likely candidate for MAS when current president Luis Arce’s term comes to an end.

The opposition is trying to use the court ruling to prevent this from happening. Carlos Mesa, one of its most prominent leaders, celebrated the “historic repair to democracy in Bolivia with the Court’s binding decision” and proposed a lawsuit against the Constitutional Court magistrates who interpreted the Convention in Morales’ favor, and against the ex-president himself for “failing to fulfill his duties and attacking popular sovereignty.”

Some of Bolivia’s leading newspapers have accused Morales of having spent hundreds of millions of Bolivianos in electoral and judicial maneuvers aimed at getting himself reelected.

El Deber, Santa Cruz’s leading newspaper, added its voice to Mesa’s position and called for a lawsuit against those responsible for the MAS leader’s qualification. It also questioned the integrity of the two Inter-American Court judges who voted against Advisory Opinion 28/21, Argentine Raúl Zaffaroni and Ecuadorian Patricio Pazmiño.