Sawt Falasteen - From stronghold guarded by backers, Bolivia ex-leader plots return

The former Bolivian president is hugely popular in this coca-growing region and maintains an iron grip -- no one enters Lauca Ene without his approval.

From this stronghold, his influence extends across the Tropico de Cochabamba department, a region of dense forests and broad rivers that is home to 260,000 people.

It is here where Morales, himself a former coca grower, forged his career in the union struggles of the 1980s and that he is now plotting his return to power -- despite a court-imposed ban on anyone serving more than two presidential terms.

Morales, now 65, who rose from dire poverty to become Bolivia's first Indigenous president between 2006 and 2019, still has the ability to energize and mobilize his supporters.

Lauca Ene has been his refuge for seven months as he evades an arrest warrant -- annulled last week by one judge before being upheld Friday by another judge -- for allegedly trafficking a minor.

Morales is accused of entering a relationship with a 15-year-old girl while president in 2015 and fathering a child with her the following year.

He has firmly rejected the charges as a case of "judicial persecution."

The police have not tried to cross the village's makeshift barricades or to confront the spear-wielding coca growers who parade here, carrying handmade metal shields.

"We'll be here until our brother Evo Morales is in the presidency," said Willy Alvarado, a 54-year-old farmer.

- Back to La Paz -

Elsewhere in the region, clinics and government offices function normally. Police and soldiers are present, but carefully avoid contact with the farmers.

But in Lauca Ene, a town of 900, Morales's determined loyalists patrol access roads day and night.

The former leader, wearing a T-shirt and sandals, met with AFP in his modest office where he shrugged off the court's two-term limit and said he doesn't think officials would "dare" reject his candidacy.

"I am legally and constitutionally qualified," Morales said.

He has said he will travel the 300 miles (500 kilometers) to La Paz on May 16, surrounded by supporters, to register his candidacy for what would be a fourth term as leader.

Morales warned that if election officials denied him, his Indigenous supporters might rise up again as they did in past deadly protests.

Outside, Zenobia Taboada, a farmer chewing on coca leaves, seconded that view.

"If they touch brother Evo," she said angrily, "the people will come out right away."

- Firm control -

Morales lives and works in a three-story building in Lauca Ene, meeting daily with farmers, workers and politicians.

His backers live nearby in makeshift shelters and eat from communal pots.

They man the barricades in rotating two-hour shifts and are there come rain or shine, said Vicente Choque, a coca grower close to Morales.

Behind him dozens of farmers line up, battalion-style.

"I have arrows, my companions have spears and shields, in case," he said.

Members of the main coca-growers union take turns serving here for two days at a time. Some man surveillance posts at area barracks and the airport.

Francisco Caceres, 57, leads a "vigil" outside a police station, ready to report any unusual movement.

"One call is all it takes" to block roads regionwide, he said.

- 'Recover what we had' -

At the entrance to Lauca Ene, a dozen men and women cross their spears to block the road. Only chickens and dogs roam freely.

The barricade they built has been there so long that grass has sprouted atop its palm covering.

Zenobia Andia traveled 60 miles to serve her two-day guard rotation.

She lamented the policies of current President Luis Arce, a former Morales ally, who is seeking re-election but has been widely criticized for his handling of a prolonged economic crisis.

"We were on top and we've fallen down," Andia said, contrasting Arce's record with that of Morales.

"We just want to recover what we had."

E.Qaddoumi--SF-PST