BOLIVIA’S top electoral tribunal has disqualified former president Evo Morales from standing in the August presidential vote and suspended the candidacy of the other main left-wing contender.

Tuesday’s decision immediately propelled President Luis Arce’s governing Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party into the ranks of the election frontrunners.

Those affected are the two strongest left-wing challengers to Mr Arce’s nominee: Mr Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, who governed the country from 2006 until his overthrow in 2019, and Senate President Andronico Rodriguez.

Both Mr Morales and Mr Rodriguez vowed to fight the decisions and condemned them as a blow to Bolivia’s fragile democracy.

The former president told a local radio show: “The parties that want to support me have been persecuted. 

“The battle is not lost. We will wage a social and legal battle.”

Posting on social media, Mr Morales voiced alarm at “the grave threat facing democracy today.”

Mr Rodríguez also called for protests against what he described as “a political decision” to suspend his candidacy.

“No ruling or judicial decision driven by political interests can overrule the sovereign will of the people,” he wrote on X.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal gave narrow, technical reasons for the decisions as the window closed for candidates to register their political parties.

A power struggle between Mr Morales and Mr Arce, his former ally and finance minister, has fractured MAS, forcing Mr Morales to break away and create his own political party.

The current president, whose popularity has plunged as inflation surges and fuel shortages paralyse the country, dropped out of the election last week and nominated senior minister Eduardo del Castillo as the MAS candidate.

According to a list published on Tuesday by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the successfully registered opposition candidates include former cement tycoon Samuel Doria Medina and neoliberal former president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, who held power in 2001-2.