Military coup attempt in Bolivia fails, president urges people to mobilize against democracy threat

Armoured vehicles rammed the doors of Bolivia’s government palace Wednesday in an apparent coup attempt, but Bolivian President Luis Arce vowed to stand firm and named a new army commander who ordered troops to stand down.

Soon the soldiers pulled back, along with a line of military vehicles, as hundreds of Arce’s supporters rushed the square outside the palace, waving Bolivian flags, singing the national anthem and cheering.

Arce, surrounded by ministers, waved at the crowd. “Thank you to the Bolivian people,” he said. “Let democracy live on.”

Hours later, the Bolivian general who appeared to be behind the rebellion, Juan José Zúñiga, was arrested after the attorney general opened an investigation. It wasn’t immediately clear what the charges against him were.

Bolivian troops take over central square in capital

Members of Bolivia’s armed forces entered one of the main squares in La Paz on Wednesday, as the country’s president condemned the movements. Some in the capital held signs saying, ‘Democracy must be respected.’

But in a twist, Zúñiga claimed before his arrest that Arce himself told the general to storm the palace in a political move.

“The president told me, ‘The situation is very screwed up, very critical. It is necessary to prepare something to raise my popularity,'” Zúñiga told reporters.

Zúñiga said he asked Arce if he should “take out the armoured vehicles?” and that Arce replied, “Take them out.”

Justice Minister Iván Lima denied Zúñiga’s claims, saying the general was lying and trying to justify his own actions for which he will face justice.

Prosecutors will seek the maximum sentence of 15 to 20 years in prison for Zúñiga, Lima said via the social media platform X, “for having attacked democracy and the Constitution.”

‘I will not allow this insubordination’: president

Arce has not commented on Zúñiga’s claims, and the Ministry of the Presidency did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment. But Arce did confront Zúñiga during the coup attempt in the palace hallway, as shown on video on Bolivian television:

“I am your captain, and I order you to withdraw your soldiers, and I will not allow this insubordination,” Arce said.

Arce swore in new military leaders amid the attempted coup, including Zúñiga’s position. New army chief José Wilson Sánchez ordered all mobilized troops to return to their barracks. “No one wants the images we’re seeing in the streets,” he said.Prior to entering the government building, Zúñiga told reporters in the square that there will be a “new cabinet of ministers.”

“Surely things will change, but our country cannot continue like this any longer,” he told a local TV station.

Zúñiga did not explicitly say he’s leading a coup, but in the palace, with bangs echoing behind him, he said the army was trying to “restore democracy and free our political prisoners.”

“Stop destroying, stop impoverishing our country, stop humiliating our army,” he said in full uniform, flanked by soldiers, insisting the action being taken was supported by the public.

The incident was met with a wave of outrage by other regional leaders, including: the Organization of American States; Gabriel Boric, the president of neighbouring Chile; the leader of Honduras and former Bolivian leaders.

The leadership of Bolivia’s largest labour union condemned the action and declared an indefinite strike of social and labour organizations in La Paz in defence of the government.

Arce called for “democracy to be respected” in a message on his X account.

“We cannot allow, once again, coup attempts to take the lives of Bolivians,” he said from inside the palace, surrounded by government officials, in a video message sent to news outlets.

An hour later, Arce announced new heads of the army, navy and air force amid the roar of supporters. Video showed troops setting up blockades outside the government palace.

Soon after troops and armoured vehicles started pulling back from Bolivia’s presidential palace. A Reuters witness said Zúñiga was later arrested for the failed coup, after an attorney general opened an investigation against him. It’s unclear where he’s being taken.

Tensions over the economy

Bolivia, a country of 12 million people, has seen intensifying protests in recent months over the economy’s precipitous decline from one of the continent’s fastest-growing two decades ago to one of its most crisis-stricken.

Bolivia’s financial quagmire stems, at least in part, from an unprecedented rift at the highest levels of the governing party.

Arce and his one-time ally, leftist icon and former president Evo Morales, are battling for the future of Bolivia’s splintering Movement for Socialism (MAS) ahead of elections in 2025.

The political fight has paralyzed the government’s efforts to deal with the deepening economic despair, and analysts had warned that the social unrest could explode in the historically turbulent nation of 12 million people.

Cracks in the governing party opened in 2019, when Morales, then Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, ran for an unconstitutional third term. He won a contested vote plagued by allegations of fraud, setting off mass protests that caused 36 deaths and prompted Morales to resign and flee the country.

After an interim government took control in what MAS called a coup, Morales’s chosen successor, Arce, won the election on a campaign promise to restore prosperity to Bolivia, once Latin America’s mainstay source of natural gas.

Morales rallies supporters to oppose coup

Arce had been Morales’s finance minister who oversaw years of strong growth and low inflation. But assuming the presidency in 2020, he encountered a bleak economic reckoning from the coronavirus pandemic. Diminished gas production sealed the end of Bolivia’s budget-busting economic model.

Still hugely popular among Bolivia’s Indigenous communities, coca growers and union workers, Morales saw an opportunity. After returning from exile, the charismatic populist announced plans last year to run in the 2025 vote — setting himself on a collision course with Arce, who is expected to seek re-election.

Morales, to his credit, announced a national mobilization of his supporters in the wake of the apparent coup attempt.

“We will not allow the armed forces to violate democracy and intimidate people,” he said.