BOLIVIAN President Luis Arce has said that he won’t stand for re-election after opinion polls pointed to him suffering a humiliating defeat in August’s election if he continued to seek a second term.

The decision, announced in a lengthy televised address late on Tuesday, comes amid a deepening rift at the top of Bolivia’s governing Movement for Socialism (MAS) party as Mr Arce and his erstwhile ally, former president Evo Morales, struggle for control.

“I will not be a factor in dividing the popular vote,” Mr Arce, who took power in 2020, said in Tuesday night’s speech, warning that a fragmented base would give Bolivia’s right-wing parties a shot at power after nearly two decades of socialist rule, interrupted by the coup government that ruled for a year from 2019.

“Much less will I facilitate the realisation of a fascist right-wing project that seeks to destroy the productive social economic model.”

The rivalry between the president and Mr Morales has accelerated a slow-burning economic crisis that has working-class voters, who are the core constituency of MAS, up in arms.

Polls indicate that the embattled president has been falling further and further behind his left-wing rivals — Mr Morales and Senate president Andronico Rodriguez.

With MAS under Mr Arce’s control, Mr Morales was forced to break away and create his own party to host his candidacy.

It remains unclear whether Mr Rodriguez will join the MAS ticket or register with another party. The registration deadline is May 19.

Mr Arce also claimed Mr Morales should not stand in the election “because, constitutionally, he cannot do so and because the dispersion and fragmentation of the vote would favour the right.”

The government insists that a 2023 constitutional court ruling bars Mr Morales from seeking another term.

In January, a judge ordered Mr Morales’s arrest on charges linked to a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl, but the former president insists that the allegations are politically motivated.