to enter the runoff.

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Bolivia’s top electoral tribunal on Tuesday disqualifiedfrom running in the August presidential vote and suspended the candidacy of the other main leftist contender, immediately vaulting

into the ranks of front-runners despite its unpopularity.The moves targeted the two strongest leftist challengers to Arce’s nominee: Morales, Bolivia’swho governed the country from 2006 until his ouster in 2019, and Andrónico Rodríguez, the young Senate president who hails from Morales’ rural coca-growing bastion.

Both Morales and Rodríguez vowed to fight the decisions and condemned them as a blow to the Andean nation’s fragile democracy.“The parties that want to support me have been persecuted,” Morales, who still commands

stronghold, told a local radio show. “The battle is not lost. We will wage a social and legal battle.”

On social media, he voiced alarm over “the grave threat facing democracy today.”Silvia Delgado García, a lawyer for former drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán in 2016, hands out campaign literature ahead of the upcoming judicial elections, in Ciudad Juarez, Sunday, April 27, 2025. Delgado García is seeking to be elected as a criminal judge in the northern state of Chihuahua. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez)

Nine years ago, Silvia Delgado García was a member of Sinaloa cartel leader Guzmán’s legal team when he was temporarily held in a prison in Ciudad Juarez before being extradited to the United States. He was eventually tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison in the U.S.She’s still marked by the case.

Some critics of electing judges, and a human rights litigation group called Defensorxs, have labeled Delgado García “high risk,” because “she defends alleged drug traffickers.”The group has also identified 17 other candidates that way for being prosecuted, being members of investigated organizations, for alleged human rights violations and deals with criminal groups.