The first day of reception of candidacies for the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of Bolivia closed without applicants

[Inkriql]

The Mixed Commission of Constitution of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly (ALP) of Bolivia has closed this Saturday the first day of receiving nominations for a member of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of the country without any candidate.

"Until 19.00 (local time) on this first day the Constitution Commission did not receive a single application," said an institutional statement collected by the Bolivian news agency ABI.

The regulation for the call and election of members of the TSE establishes 20 days for the election. The members will be responsible for convening the new elections after the annulment of the elections on October 20 due to the “irregularities” of the process and whose results originated the political crisis in which the country is immersed.

The call establishes that they cannot run for a member of the TSE who occupy a public office in any state entity and who have not resigned three months before the day of the application. Nor those who have been leaders or candidates in any political organization in the five years prior to the appointment date. In addition, applicants must prove that they have not militated in politics in the last ten years.

The political crisis in Bolivia broke out after the presidential elections of October 20, in which the now former president Evo Morales proclaimed his victory but the opposition denounced a “gigantic fraud”. The Organization of American States (OAS) audited the electoral process in which it found "irregularities."

Morales resigned on November 10 and fled to Mexico. Jeanine Áñez, second vice president of the Senate, proclaimed herself interim president to fill the power vacuum left by the former president and the resignation of other senior officials.

Neither Morales nor his followers recognize Áñez because they consider his stay at the Burned Palace to be the result of a "coup d'etat."

Áñez enacted on Sunday the Law of Exceptional and Transitional Regime for the conduct of the elections, a rule that provides that neither Morales nor his former vice president, García Linera, may be candidates.