Bolivian President Luis Arce announced that he would not seek reelection in the upcoming August 17 election and challenged former President Evo Morales to also drop his candidacy in order to achieve “broad unity” of the left. 

“I challenge ex-President Evo Morales to not insist on his presidential candidacy. Not only because the Constitution does not allow it, but also because voter fragmentation will benefit the right,” said Arce in a speech broadcast from the presidential palace in La Paz. 

Arce said the decision to drop out of the race was based on the “conviction” that he didn’t want to split the vote. He said this would enable the rise of a “right-wing fascistoid project intent on destroying the plurinational state” of Bolivia. He went on to call on all social organizations and sectors from the left to support the candidate with the best chances of defeating what he called the country’s “ransackers.” 

Hay que poner en alto los intereses de la Patria y del pueblo, antes que las ambiciones personales y electoralistas de corto plazo, pues hay un bien mayor a cuidar. No podemos poner en riesgo el porvenir y el bienestar del pueblo por apetitos individuales.

En un momento de… pic.twitter.com/UjIJIhQHbU

— Luis Alberto Arce Catacora (Lucho Arce) (@LuchoXBolivia) May 14, 2025

Arce called on Senate head Andrónico Rodríguez, who announced his presidential candidacy in May, to take on the “challenge of thinking and acting with the unity of the people in mind.” Rodríguez, who was a coca growers’ union leader before entering politics, has long been touted as the face of the next generation of the Bolivian left. He has had close ties with Morales in the past, but is also amicable with Arce.

Morales has already rejected Arce’s call. “Only the people can ask me to decline my candidacy,” he wrote on X. He added that he did not have any “personal ambitions,” only the “mandate of the people to save Bolivia again.” 

Solo el pueblo puede pedirme que decline la candidatura. No tenemos ambiciones personales. Vamos a obedecer el mandato del pueblo para salvar, otra vez, Bolivia.

Nunca renunciaremos a nuestra conciencia revolucionaria. Con la fuerza del pueblo seguimos de pie.

Una vez más… pic.twitter.com/GRu0a3FrXW

— Evo Morales Ayma (@evoespueblo) May 14, 2025

Arce is widely credited as the architect of Morales’s economic policies during his three presidential terms between 2006 and late 2019. But although the two were once close allies, they are now bitter enemies. The first cracks began to appear after Arce won the 2020 presidential elections in a landslide as the candidate for their Movement Towards Socialism (MAS, by its Spanish initials) party.

The split became definitive on February 27 when Morales announced that he was leaving MAS, which has ultimately remained on Arce’s side, to form a new party with which he intends to seek a fourth term in office.