Ex-president greeted with thousands of flag-waving supporters a day after new leftwing president, Luis Arce, sworn in

Thousands of flag-waving supporters have greeted Evo Morales at Bolivia’s southern border, as the country’s exiled former president began a triumphant homecoming that suggests his four-decade political career may be far from over.

“As long as capitalism and imperialism exist, the fight goes on,” Morales, 61, declared as he prepared to cross the international bridge between the Argentinian border town of La Quiaca and Villazón in Bolivia at about 10am local time.

Luis Arce to take power after landslide win for Movement for Socialism, but experts predict bumpy road ahead

Bolivia’s new president, Luis Arce, has vowed to rebuild his country’s battered economy, revive ties with leftwing neighbours and serve one term only, as he prepared to take office after October’s landslide election.

Speaking to the Guardian before his inauguration on Sunday, the UK-educated economist was cautious about characterising his victory as proof that Latin America’s leftwing “pink tide” of the early 2000s was bouncing back after a period of rightwing dominance. Since 2018 the left has returned to power in Mexico and Argentina, while a leftwing economist is well placed to win Ecuador’s presidential election in February.

On Friday authorities confirmed Mas’ candidate, Luis Arce, won the presidential election – overcoming the ‘worst’ moment of their 25-year history

Two agonising weeks had passed since Evo Morales was driven from Bolivia and in his vice-president’s recently vacated chambers one of their party’s rising stars sat, crestfallen and drained.

“It hurts,” confessed Eva Copa, the 32-year-old senate president from Morales’ Movement Towards Socialism (Mas), her voice breaking and tears filling her eyes as she pondered what some thought might prove a fatal blow to their pro-indigenous project. “What has happened will leave scars.”

The landslide vote for Luis Arce is reason for optimism, but Bolivia still requires major resources to contain Covid-19

On 18 October, the progressive candidate, Luis Arce, decisively won Bolivia’s presidential election, beating his nearest rival by about 20 points according to exit polls. His party, Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas), also apparently retained its majorities in both houses of congress.

It’s a remarkable turn of events. In November 2019 the Mas president, Evo Morales, was overthrown in a police-military coup that installed the rightwing evangelical Jeanine Áñez as president.

Exit polls for presidential election project win for Luis Arce as rival concedes defeat

Evo Morales’s leftwing party is celebrating a stunning political comeback after its candidate appeared to trounce rivals in Bolivia’s presidential election.

The official results of Sunday’s twice-postponed election had yet to be announced on Monday afternoon, but exit polls projected that Luis Arce, the candidate for Morales’s Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas), had secured more than 50% of the vote while his closest rival, the centrist former president Carlos Mesa, received about 30%.

A year after the country’s first indigenous president was controversially ousted, his party is well placed to win a rerun presidential election

David Ticona Mamani felt despair and foreboding when Evo Morales was forced from his Andean homeland last November amid civil unrest, electoral meltdown and what supporters of Bolivia’s first indigenous president called a racist, rightwing coup.

“I wept,” remembered the 56-year-old lawyer, a fervent supporter of Morales and his Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas).

Human Rights Watch report accuses administration of Jeanine Áñez of overseeing legal offensive against people linked to Morales

Bolivia’s rightwing caretaker government is abusing the justice system to wage a politically motivated witch-hunt against former president Evo Morales and his allies, a new report by Human Rights Watch claims.

The report accuses the US-backed administration of Jeanine Áñez – who became interim leader after Morales was forced into exile last November – of overseeing a legal offensive against more than 100 people linked to Bolivia’s first indigenous president.