Bolivia court clears Evo Morales" bid to run for third term Evo Morales, Bolivian president, came to power in 2006 Bolivia's constitutional court has opened the way for President Evo Morales to serve a third term after ruling that a new clause in the country's constitution would not bar him from standing. Mr Morales, a leftwing leader with a penchant for resource nationalism, came to power in 2006 and won a landslide second election in 2009 after changing the country's constitution that allowed only one re-election for a sitting president. His supporters have repeatedly argued that he is not bound by the constitutional clause given that his first term of office was won under the previous constitution. The constitutional court on Monday said the clause should not apply retroactively to Mr Morales" first term, making him eligible to run again. "The presidential term is computed from the time of the adoption of the new constitution," Ruddy Flores, the head of the constitutional tribunal, said in La Paz. The court's decision sparked outrage in some quarters of the Andean country, with some of the president's foes arguing that a new mandate would be unconstitutional. "The Constitutional Tribunal ignores the Constitution and puts itself outside the law by allowing [a Morales] re-election," tweeted Samuel Doria Medina, a cement tycoon and centre-right opponent. Despite some growing cracks in his power base, the governing party, MAS, had already asked Mr Morales to run for a third presidential term in elections scheduled for 2014. Analysts believe his chances of victory are high given that Mr Morales managed, during his first term in office, to neutralise the rightwing opposition. Since coming to power Mr Morales has brought a number of the country's utilities and commodities industries into state hands. Notwithstanding his fierce anti-capitalist rhetoric, thanks to high commodity prices as well as prudent macroeconomic policies, Bolivia's gross domestic product has nearly tripled to $26bn in the past seven years. Some observers believe redistribution of those funds into social projects is likely to keep political instability at bay in one of Latin America's most volatile countries.