Luis Arce, 60 years old, who denounced this Wednesday (26) a military mobilization at the government headquarters in La Paz as an attempted coup d’état against his government, has been president of Bolivia since November 2020.
Born in La Paz, he is an economist and had a career at the Central Bank of Bolivia. He was Minister of Economy during the government of his political godfather, Evo Morales (2006-2019), leading the project to nationalize hydrocarbons, among other economic sectors, promoted by the leftist administration.
In 2020, he was elected president of Bolivia by the Movement to Socialism (MAS), Morales’ party, following a political crisis in which the coca leader resigned following allegations of fraud in the 2019 presidential election.
During his administration, Arce was accused of persecuting political opponents. Jeanine Añez, who was interim president of Bolivia between 2019 and 2020 after Morales’ resignation, was arrested in 2021 and later sentenced to ten years in prison on coup charges.
At the end of 2022, another big name in the opposition, Luis Fernando Camacho, governor of the department of Santa Cruz, was arrested on the same charges.
Arce plans to obtain a second mandate in the 2025 presidential election, and it was precisely this desire that put him on a collision course with Morales, who intended to return to office.
The coca leader accused his political godson of corruption and deviating from the socialist precepts of the MAS. In October 2023, Arce was expelled from the party at the same party congress in which Morales was acclaimed as a presidential candidate.
Months later, the Bolivian court declared Morales ineligible, pointing out that the former president could no longer run as a candidate as he had already held the presidency of Bolivia for two terms.
In foreign policy, Arce maintained his political godfather’s position of proximity to left-wing Latin American governments, including the dictatorships of Venezuela and Cuba, and caused concern in the neighborhood by getting closer to Iran, with whom he reached a partnership to supply of drones.
#Luis #Arce #president #denounced #coup #Bolivia