内容摘要：Houthi fighters march during a rally of support for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and against the U.S. strikes on Yemen outside Sanaa on Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. (AP Photo)

Houthi fighters march during a rally of support for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and against the U.S. strikes on Yemen outside Sanaa on Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. (AP Photo)

Rodríguez — a fresh-faced 36-year-old candidate who generated excitement among voters disillusioned withand outraged with Arce’s handling of

— also called for protests against what he called “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.

and finance minister, President Arce, has fractured their dominant Movement Toward Socialism party, or MAS, forcing Morales to break off and create his own political party.Arce, whose popularity has plunged as inflation surges and fuel shortages paralyze the country,

last week and nominated his senior minister, Eduardo del Castillo, as the MAS party candidate.

A stern-faced lawyer and loyalist of Arce who oversawfrom 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’s

who 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.