Almost a year after his self-exile, Evo Morales returns to Bolivia and takes a “mass bath”

The masista victory in the October 18 elections and the inauguration yesterday of the new Bolivian president, Luis Arce Catacora, were the prelude to the celebration of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) that intensified today with the return of party leader and former president Evo Morales (2006-2019), who after 363 days since his resignation and subsequent self-exile – first to Mexico and then to Argentina – returned to his homeland across the La Quiaca bridge, from where he crossed the border crossing on foot to Villazón and then continued a caravan trip that will take you to your stronghold in Chimoré, Cochabamba.

Escorted by his former vice president, Álvaro García Linera and several former ministers, Evo arrived on Sunday to La Quiaca after a brief visit to Jujuy, where he visited the home of Milagro Sala, a social leader and leader of Tupac Amaru.

Hours before and after the formal ceremony for the assumption of Arce in La Paz, the President of Argentina, Alberto Fernández and senior officials of his government traveled to the north of their country to offer a dinner of honor on the former president’s last night as refugee. In the dinner photo, everyone was without a mask despite the pandemic.

“It is a very important day for everyone, it is very nice to be in La Quiaca for this reason, which is to guarantee that our dear Evo Morales returns to his homeland, from which he should never have left and should never have been mistreated as he was” .

Alberto Fernández, President of Argentina.

In an emotional speech, the Peronist leader revived the idea of ​​“the Great Homeland that wants to grow, justice and development for all ”, especially because in the opinion of the president“ in recent years, Latin America has been disintegrating into individuals ”.

Fernández and Morales arrived up to the middle of the Horacio Guzmán international bridge, hugging each other before saying goodbye after 11 months in the same city. In an interview with Third Last January, the former Bolivian president assured that his days passed between meetings, “football matches, here you eat a lot of meat, very happy.” Precisely, at the farewell, the Argentine head of state joked by pointing to Evo “We are going to miss you, and we will try to send you meat.”

Amid shouts of “Viva Evo” and “Jallalah Bolivia,” hundreds of adherents of the blue party waited for the group of masistas. At 10:09, local time, Evo Morales set foot on Bolivian territory and declared that “I was sure I was going to come back, I didn’t think so soon.”

However, in the first speech in Bolivia the ex-president went further by ensuring that there was no fraud in the canceled elections of 2019, where he obtained 47% of the votes, since proof of this was the 55% who reached the binomial of Arce and former Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca in the recent elections. At the same time, he pointed out that the president of the United States, Donald Trump, would have been behind last year’s crisis.

“The gringo who gave us the coup (d’état) last year. Someone told me: ‘Evo, you’ve abandoned us.’ I told him: ‘If I stayed, I had two paths: the cemetery or the United States.’

Evo Morales, former president of Bolivia.

This scenario is totally different from what happened on November 10, when after 21 days of national mobilizations that accused electoral fraud in the elections of October 20, which as a result extended the mandate of Evo Morales until 2025, MAS leader resigned from the Presidency and two days later he left on a Mexican Air Force plane to Mexico City, being received by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

From there, Evo and his close circle reported a “coup” in progress before the possession supported by the Armed Forces as interim president of the then second president of the Senate, Jeanine Áñez. Despite this, the masista government was sunk after the flight of a large part of the Executive.

Last December and as soon as Fernández took office, the Masista group moved to Buenos Aires, from where they held a series of meetings that defined the Arce-Choquehuanca duo. Despite the exile, Morales maintained a critical role with the interim government and the mobilizations. This cost him a series of legal accusations for terrorism and sedition, since Áñez accused him of promoting road blockades.

With the new mass government installed in the Palacio Quemado, Evo Morales will continue his journey accompanied by at least 800 vehicles. According to the agenda, the delegation will continue to Uyuni where it will spend the night today, to continue tomorrow to Oruro and from there to Chimoré, where cultural, religious and political welcoming events are already organized.

In a recent conversation with Third, Former Vice President Álvaro García Linera pointed out that “of course we want to return to Bolivia and with Evo we will defend ourselves in court.” Given the refusal to involve Morales in the next mass government, but still with the unknown of the future cabinet, the former president will seek to fulfill what on previous occasions he pointed out as his “dream” after leaving the policy that involves continuing to lead the Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba, cultivate a farm and raise fish.