Mexico Grants Asylum To Bolivian Leader Morales: Foreign Minister

Mexico City, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Nov, 2019 ) :Mexico said Monday it has granted asylum to Bolivia's Evo Morales, after the leftist president's departure left the South American nation reeling amid a power vacuum.

"Several minutes ago I received a phone call from (former) president Evo Morales in which he responded to our offer and verbally and formally requested political asylum in our country," Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told a news conference.

"The Mexican foreign ministry, after consulting Interior Minister Olga Sanchez Cordero, made the decision to grant him asylum... for humanitarian reasons." Morales's "life and physical integrity are at risk in Bolivia," added Ebrard, saying Mexico had asked the Bolivian foreign ministry to grant the former president safe conduct.

Ebrard did not answer journalists' questions on whether Morales would travel to Mexico, and if so when he would arrive.

Mexico had said Sunday it was prepared to grant Morales asylum, after he stepped down amid massive protests and growing unrest over his fraud-stained reelection on October 20.

Morales, 60, had been in power since 2006.

Mexico, currently led by leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has repeatedly called Morales's standing down a "coup." The country is already welcoming a large group of Morales government officials and allied lawmakers in its embassy in Bolivia. Originally, there were 20 of them, but Ebrard said earlier Monday that there are now "many more." Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president, was a member of the "pink tide" of leftist leaders who held sway across much of Latin America in the 2000s.

However, he was forced to step down after losing the backing of the military amid weeks of increasingly violent protests over his constitutionally questionable reelection.

A host of top officials resigned along with him, leaving the country with no clear leader and torn by looting and riots.

The constitutional next-in-line, deputy senate speaker Jeanine Anez, said Monday she would call fresh elections.