What?Who orchestrated the irregular military movement that last Wednesday had Bolivia on the brink of a new institutional crisis? That is the question that hovers after the world witnessed how the military took over Plaza Murillo in La Paz, where the government palace and the National Congress are located, and with armored cars, tear gas and rubber bullets they tried to break the small door. of green bars of the Quemado Palace to “reestablish democracy.”
According to the criteria of
The main tank was driven by General Juan Jose Zunigaknown as the “people’s general” for his closeness to mining and social sectors, who had been dismissed 24 hours earlier as head of the Army by President Luis Arce, and who stated that his intention was to “change the government cabinet” and “restore” democracy in Bolivia.
I will not allow this insubordination.
Immediately, Arce, who was in the Casa Grande del Pueblo – seat of the Executive Power – appeared on state television to affirm that the country was “going through an attempted coup d’état.” “I will not allow this insubordination,” he added.
After that, what happened was a Face to face between the president and the Bolivian general in a hallway of the Palacio Quemado and in the middle of officials guarding Arce.
“We are upset by this attitude, do you see this?” Arce confronted him, showing him the presidential baton.
“Here is the commander of the Air Force,” Zúñiga, wearing a bulletproof vest, responded to a soldier standing to his left, also in combat gear.
─Obey my order, Captain, go back and withdraw all the military police to their barracks right now! ─Arce raised his voice, and then insisted: “It is an order. Are you not going to listen to me?”
“No,” said Zúñiga, who did not stop chewing gum in an almost overacting manner and who finally decided to leave the room, throwing one last phrase at the president: “It can’t be contempt.”
But, the rebellion ended as quickly as it began. Hours later, the uncertainty that led thousands of Bolivians to crowd into ATMs, supermarkets and gas stations to stock up was clarified when the Government regained control of Plaza Murillo, arrested the general and 16 other people, and changed the leadership. military.
Contrary, Doubts about the coup d’état in Bolivia began to increase when Zúñiga himself, who did not resist his arrest, decided to accuse President Arce in front of the microphones and cameras of the media of having planned the military action to “boost his popularity” and gave him the order to bring out “the armored vehicles.”
Death threat and accusations on television, what preceded the “coup attempt”
Zúñiga implied that the “self-hit” order occurred last Sunday after a basketball game.
The next day, Monday, the general was the guest of journalist Jimena Antelo on her program No Lied, on the PAT TV channel. It was because three days before, Former President Evo Morales (2006-2019) accused Zúñiga of developing a plan to kill him.
“The military is willing to lose his freedom, to be arrested before the courts (…) he is aware that he can give his life or go to prison, and even more so when one is a commander,” anticipated Zúñiga when speaking on the program about the defense of the Constitution and the Palacio Quemado.
The soldier is willing to lose his freedom, to be imprisoned before justice (…) he is aware that he can give up his life
“Zúñiga said on national television that former President Evo Morales did not have the right to be a presidential candidate for the 2025 elections, that he had violated the Constitution on repeated occasions and that he was basically someone who should simply give way to President Arce’s candidacy,” Eduardo Gamarra, director of the Latino Public Opinion Forum at Florida International University, told this newspaper.
Morales’ reply did not take long to arrive through his social networks where he said that “those types of threats never occurred in democracy” and that if they were not disavowed by the Government and the military authorities “it will be proven that what they really are authorizing is a self-coup.”
Once the confrontation was explained, and after the reactions of rejection of Zúñiga’s statements, Arce decided to dismiss him as commander of the Army, but did not immediately replace him with another soldier. Zúñiga declared himself still in command of the Army and his next step was to lead a military assault.
“Hence, many think that This is a classic self-coup because there is no general in any Latin American country who gives statements to the press without having the authorization of the captain general of the Armed Forces, who is the president.“Gamarra added.
However, from the perspective of Bolivian analyst Marcelo Arequipa, “It was not a theater”. “General Zúñiga said literally: ‘we are going to release the political prisoners, starting with Mr. Luis Fernando Camacho, an opponent detained during the Arce government. What happened was that the coup failed because the troops from the other military regiments did not arrive.”he comments.
The turbulent past between Zúñiga, Arce and Morales
The tension between Evo Morales and Luis Arce, both members of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party, dates back to the crisis that Bolivia experienced in 2019 when then-president Morales – the first indigenous leader in the country’s history – forced a third re-election prohibited by the Constitution and rejected by a popular referendum.
In the midst of a social uprising that left 36 dead, Morales was forced to resign and sought asylum first in Mexico and then in Argentina.
After an interim government that the MAS considered illegal, the party regained power in 2020 with Arce, the political successor of a depressed Morales who by then was no longer the undisputed leader of that force.
Evo Morales plays an important role in Bolivia because he has great support from social organizations
As Morales’ Minister of Economy, Arce led the so-called “Bolivian miracle” thanks to high gas prices, but once he took power his reality was different: the economy had been injured after the covid-19 pandemic and lost control of the Legislative Assembly after the fracture of the ruling MAS when Morales announced in 2023 his intention to run for the 2025 presidential elections, despite a legislative blockade that prevents him from doing so.
Since October of last year, Arce and Morales froze their relations and only spoke again until this week after the events in La Paz.
“Evo Morales plays an important role in Bolivia because he has great support from social organizations and, although there is a regulatory provision that prevents him from running for the 2025 presidential election, his followers still assure that they will do everything possible so that he can be a candidate” , points out the Bolivian journalist Fabiola Chambi.
Zúñiga entered the tension in 2022 when he was promoted by Arce himself as general commander, a position in which he was ratified in January of this year.
Accused in 2013 of embezzling public funds when he was in command of an infantry regiment – for which he was arrested for seven days in January 2014 – and accused of lacking the military merits necessary to lead the Army because in his promotion he had occupied the 48th position among 65 officers, Zúñiga was accused in 2022 by former President Morales of “persecuting him.” Since then, the confrontation between the two has remained latent.
If President Arce emerges stronger from this situation, he will be seen as the great defender of democracy (…) but if, on the contrary, the voices that point to him as the author of the coup increase, the pressure could put him in trouble.
Following Wednesday’s events, the president of the Senate, Andrónico Rodríguez, a supporter of Morales, accused the government of plotting a self-coup. While a deputy close to Arce instead placed Morales behind the coup attempt, with the alleged purpose of imprisoning the president and his number two, Vice President David Choquehuanca.
“We have to see how the political forces react in the coming months. If President Arce emerges strengthened from this situation, he will be seen as the great defender of democracy and his government will have a new air, but if, on the contrary, the voices pointing to him as the author of the coup increase, the pressure could put him in serious trouble in terms of governability,” says Sebastián Fernández de Soto, an analyst at Control Risks.
The economic and political crisis that has Luis Arce on the ropes in Bolivia
The “attempted coup d’état” caught Luis Arce with a plummeting favorability index since May, when it went from 34 percent to 28 percent in just one month, according to a survey by the consulting firm Diagnosis. The reasons center on the shortage of dollars – which many Bolivians use to purchase goods or as a savings currency -, the rise in food prices, the lack of fuel and the drop in gas production.
“Bolivia is facing the worst economic crisis in the last 20 years, where it went from being self-sufficient in many areas to importing. What we are dealing with is an internal struggle within the MAS over who will be the candidate in the next elections,” explained analyst Gamarra.
It is about an internal struggle within the MAS over who will be the candidate in the next elections.
The Legislative Assembly, which is currently predominantly in the opposition, is paralysed by the intervention of the Constitutional Court. In fact, the clash between the legislative and judicial powers has blocked the passage of laws since last February.
“The division between Arce and Morales has as its central characteristic elections for the judiciary that have been postponed and that former President Morales wants to be held because he thinks that President Arce is the one who controls the judiciary and, therefore, is the one that denies him the possibility of being re-elected next year,” Gamarra pointed out.
In that sense, the analysts and journalists consulted by this newspaper agree that Bolivia is going through a very serious institutional crisis that is compounded by an atomized opposition incapable of articulating a response.
And while the international community, including powers like China and Russia and regimes like that of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, sheltered President Arce because, as Fernández de Soto mentions: “No government wants to be directly associated with supporting coup movements in other countries“For the moment, the only evidence that there was an attempted coup in Bolivia are the scars left at the door of the Palacio Quemado, which is now guarded by 17 police officers.
Meanwhile, the problems within Bolivia continue to seek an urgent response that, for Gamarra, “requires very strong measures, but above all, a solid institutional framework.”
STEPHANY ECHAVARRÍA
International Editor
TIME
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