A judge interrupted the hunger strike that former Bolivian president Jeanine Áñez had been carrying out for 11 days to ask for her freedom. She argued that the protection of her life “is privileged even above her own will.” The prison administration reported that, in application of this order, it provided a rehydration serum to the former president, “with the approval of the patient.” Áñez’s daughter tweeted that she had been sedated to put the serum in her veins and that she feared her purpose was to kill her mother. This was dismissed by the authorities.
Áñez, who has been in prison for almost a year, felt bad on Friday at one of the hearings in the trial against her for having assumed the presidency of the country in November 2019, allegedly contrary to the Constitution. The hearing had to be suspended and the eighth criminal sentencing judge ordered that the former president be transferred to a hospital for the purpose of hydrating and nourishing her, whether she wanted it or not. Áñez’s exit to a hospital had been sought by her relatives for a long time, so it is assumed that the former president had to accept it willingly. Even the opposition considered it as an achievement of the strike that she carried out alone.
But the transfer did not materialize. As soon as they found out about it, groups of protesters from the Movement for Socialism (MAS) gathered at the gates of the prison to prevent it from happening. They collided with other demonstrators who denounced the alleged existence of political prisoners in the country and made a ruckus. The governor of the internment center then reported “the material impossibility” of taking Áñez to the hospital. Next, the judge ordered public service doctors to enter the prison to “restore Mrs. Áñez’s health until her life is out of danger, even having to act against the will” of the striker.
The opposition interpreted these events as a judicial setback caused by official pressure. Since the arrest of Áñez in March 2021, politicians opposed to the MAS denounce that this party has controlled the judges, which is why, according to them, they are very rigid with the defense. Áñez has tried several times to go to a hospital, but the government has always prevented her. “We demand that Luis Arce guarantee the life of the former president and that she be immediately transferred to a health center, protected from the masista shock groups,” tweeted former president Carlos Mesa. “It is clear that what justice dictates is not respected, masismo is applying a clear form of torture by preventing Jeanine Áñez from receiving the health care she needs,” wrote Luis Fernando Camacho, the governor of Santa Cruz. .
Mesa and other political figures, such as Samuel Doria Medina, had asked Jeanine Áñez to break her fast. “As long as there is life, there is hope of reversing the injustice to which she is subjected,” said the latter.
Áñez declared a hunger strike on the eve of the start of a controversial trial about her actions and that of the military command in the hours after the overthrow of President Evo Morales. This is interrupted by legal technicalities. The opposition considers that the trial is illegitimate, because it has not been authorized by parliament, as is appropriate when the accused is a former president. The MAS justifies the procedure because it only refers to what happened in the days prior to the proclamation of Áñez as president and does not touch on its management.
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According to the accusation, Jeanine Áñez, then the second vice president of the Senate, acted against her duties and against the Constitution when, two days after the resignation of President Evo Morales, she proclaimed herself his successor without the explicit approval of Congress, and took the oath of office. with the support of the military and police chiefs of the time, who are also prosecuted in the same process. Two of them, former Navy and Air Force chiefs, pleaded guilty and received three-year sentences. Áñez and the other defendants who will undergo the process can be sentenced to up to 12 years in prison.
The opposition, which fully supported Áñez’s seizure of power, considers that this was legal and recalls that at that time it was endorsed by a ruling by the Constitutional Court through a press release. After the fall of Morales, Áñez became the highest-ranking authority in the country due to the resignation of the main parliamentary leaders, who belonged to the MAS. The Constitutional Court then stated that, by jurisprudence, the presidential succession should be automatic (“ipso facto”) to avoid a power vacuum, although without identifying the person who should assume the presidency. Some time later, the same Court retracted announcing that its statement lacked legal force.
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