Bolivia's leftist President Evo Morales has rejoiced in a court decision authorising a tilt at a fourth term, saying it would guarantee stability, in what the opposition slammed as a blow to democracy.
The president, a staunch ally of leftist governments in Cuba and Venezuela and a fierce critic of the United States, told a news conference yesterday that a possible fourth term "guarantees a democratic continuity, but also guarantees stability, dignity and work for dignity."
Morales said the people would decide whether or not he was successful in elections due in 2019 after the South American country's constitutional court ruled on Tuesday that he could run for a fourth consecutive term.
"We are empowered to have the vote of the people to give us their support," the 58-year-old president said.
Earlier, he wrote on Twitter: "The Democratic and Cultural revolution continues. To Victory forever!"
Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president, would rule until 2025 if elected next year, a vote that would give him 19 consecutive years in power.
Demonstrators against Morales' reelection took to the streets in the capital La Paz yesterday. In nearby El Alto, students marched under a banner calling on the president to step down.
In its ruling on Tuesday, the court said the right to run for office superseded the limits imposed in the constitution, despite the South American nation having rejected the move in a referendum last year.
In February 2016, the country voted by a slim margin against proposed changes to the constitution to allow Morales, already Bolivia's longest-serving leader since independence from Spain in 1825, to stand again for the presidency.
Morales has already had the constitution changed once, three years after taking power in 2006.
Under that revised constitution, he was elected president in 2009 and then won what was meant to be a one-off renewal in 2014.
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