BOLIVIA’s former leader Evo Morales has called on supporters to take to the streets to protest against President Luis Arce after the latter gave a televised address accusing Mr Morales of trying to overthrow him.

He made his appeal to farmers, miners and peasants on Monday after Mr Arce’s unprecedented broadcast the previous day. 

The president alleged that Mr Morales was trying to sabotage his administration and undermine democracy.

“Enough, Evo!” Mr Arce exclaimed on state TV. “Until now, I have tolerated your attacks and slander in silence. But putting the lives of people at risk is something I cannot tolerate.”

He alleged that Mr Morales’ attempts to mobilise support and  challenge him in next year’s presidential election were “putting democracy at risk.”

“You are threatening the entire country,”  the incumbent said, claiming that Mr Morales sought to return to power by “fair means or foul.”

Mr Morales, who served as Bolivia’s first indigenous president from 2006 to 2019, has vowed to unleash unrest if he is preventing from standing in the August 2025 elections.

Ever since the constitutional court barred the former leader from the election last year, coca cultivators, indigenous tribes and workers have staged street protests, marches and road blockades.

Speaking to reporters, Morales encouraged the international community to follow his March to Save Bolivia today from the south-eastern village of Caracollo to the administrative capital La Paz. 

He described the 53-mile march along a highway as a natural expression of protest against the failure of Mr Arce’s government to fix the country’s worsening economic crisis.

Writing on the X social media platform Mr Morales said: “The march is the response of a people fed up with their unthinking government, which has maintained absolute silence in the face of the crisis, corruption and the destruction of stability.”