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Morales backed protests in June by farmers and truckers against an economic crisis, rising living costs and conservative President Rodrigo Paz’s austerity plans.
“They will not intimidate us,” he responded to the charges in a post on X.
Morales said the government was going after him “to conceal the true drama Bolivia is experiencing: a deep economic and social crisis…a model that has abandoned the people and protects corruption”.
![Demonstrators stand amid tear gas as they protest against President Rodrigo Paz's government amid an ongoing economic and fuel crisis in El Alto, Bolivia, May 16, 2026. [Claudia Morales]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/reuters_6a08e6c2-1778968259.jpg?resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, rose from poverty to serve three terms as president, one of Latin America’s longest-serving leaders.
He was in office from 2006 until his fraught 2019 ouster, when he was forced to resign after elections tainted by claims of fraud.
Initially refusing to leave power, he eventually had to go, casting a shadow over nearly 14 years of economic progress and poverty reduction mixed with accusations of political heavy-handedness.
He went into exile in Mexico and later, Argentina, returning a year later after his political ally Luis Arce won the presidency.
In late 2024, allegations surfaced against him of trafficking a minor and statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl who became pregnant.
By early 2025, Morales’s supporters cut off roads and paralysed the country in protest against the charges, which he rejected. He has also refused to appear at court hearings.
As the unrest over Bolivia’s economic crisis was brewing in May, Morales was found in contempt of court, and a renewed warrant for his arrest on the rape charges was issued.
His supporters threatened to “throw the country into turmoil” if he was arrested, at a time when protests had shut down roads and forced the government to airlift food to some areas.
After Paz declared a state of emergency in June and the protests slowed, the latest investigation began, triggered by a criminal complaint over Morales’s involvement with the demonstrations.
The complaint, filed by the civic group Comit pro Santa Cruz and later picked up by the Interior Ministry, alleges that Morales’s supporters “caused a shortage of food, fuel and medicine” by blocking transport in the country for 53 days.
The charges filed on Wednesday were outlined in a document published by local media, according to German wire service DPA.
The order instructs police to detain Morales and bring him to the special anticorruption unit.
“We will continue fighting alongside the people, as we have always done, with the conviction that Bolivia deserves a different path: one of dignity, sovereignty, social justice, and the recovery of hope for all,” said Morales responding to the latest charges. %!s(
