Bolivia’s Morales Resigns, Brazil’s Lula Freed

FEATURING GUILLAUME LONG – Bolivia’s first indigenous President Evo Morales has resigned after weeks of political turmoil after he was reelected for a fourth term. Having served for 14 straight years Morales became Latin America’s longest serving elected head-of-state. He denounced the forces pushing for his resignation as “a coup.” Protesters and opposition forces contend that it was Morales’ bid for unlimited Presidential terms that led to his downfall. But the socialist leader and his supporters say a rightwing backlash against his pro-poor policies was to blame.

Meanwhile in neighboring Brazil the long-embattled former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – known affectionately as Lula – was freed on Friday from prison after Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered his release. Opposition leaders in Brazil charged him with corruption only to be convicted of similar charges themselves later on. Lula gave a defiant speech a day after his release.

Guillaume Long, senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He is a former Ecuadorian politician and academic who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador and Human Mobility, in the government of Rafael Correa. He was previously the Minister of Culture and Heritage, and Minister of Knowledge and Human Talent. He later became Ecuador’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, before resigning in January 2018.