Buenos Aires, December 23 (RHC)-- Bolivia's constitutionally-elected president Evo Morales has announced that leaders of his party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), will travel to Buenos Aires, Argentina next Suday, December 29th, to debate and call a meeting on the border with Bolivia, where they will elect their candidates for the next elections in 2020.

Morales spoke for the first time with a Bolivian media since on November 10th a coup d'état was carried out against his government, forcing him to leave the country.  "Here in Buenos Aires, we are going to have the meeting next Sunday to issue a call giving place and date, here in Argentina, and there we will elect the candidate for the Presidency and perhaps the Vice President also, in a great meeting we are going to hold," he told the Bolivian radio station, San Gabriel.

"We know that next year the elections will be called and the MAS will prepare to participate with a candidate who will mainly transmit unity.  We are debating the names of the pre-candidates, we hope to reach consensus," Evo Morales said.

In another interview with a local Argentinian media, Radio Network,​​​​​ the leader of the MAS party estimated that "at least 1,000 leaders will attend" and that the Argentinean government will help with the issue of security.

According to Argentinian media, the event would take place in Oran or Salvador Mazza, two localities in the Salta region, close to the border with Bolivia.

On the situation in his country, Evo Morales affirmed that "what hurts the most from the coup are the dead" and the "destruction of the economy."  He referred to the OAS report on the October 20th elections, and considered that "it does not speak of fraud but of irregularities," while stating that opposition to his political project is "the hatred against the Indigenous community and the industrialization of the lithium" which he promoted as president.  "Here the problem is the Indigenous vote," he said, and remarked that "the coup was to the lithium."

Regarding the possible candidates, he said that "there are many" and mentioned the names of former Foreign Ministers, Diego Pary and David Choquehuanca, the former Minister of Economy, Luis Arce and the young politician Andronico Rodriguez, according to the interview with the Bolivian radio station.

Evo Morales was appointed campaign manager of his party, a task he exercises from Argentina, where he arrived last December 12th and asked to be accepted as a political refugee.