Bolivia’s leaders have claimed a coup is afoot in opposition to Luis Arce’s leftwing administration after closely armed military troops seized management of La Paz’s political coronary heart and navy police had been filmed attempting to drive their means into the previous authorities palace.
“We denounce to the worldwide group {that a} coup try in opposition to our democratically elected authorities,” the vice-president, David Choquehuanca, tweeted on Wednesday afternoon because the alleged putsch unfolded.
In a video message, international minister Celinda Sosa Lunda claimed some military items had launched an assault on “democracy, peace and nationwide safety”.
Minutes earlier, Arce had taken to social media to report an “irregular mobilization” of some members of the navy. “Democracy should be revered,” he tweeted.
Former president Evo Morales additionally sounded the alarm as troubling photographs of the disturbances unfold on social media. Morales urged supporters to take to the streets and block roads to oppose the alleged coup try, which he blamed on the not too long ago sacked military commander Common Juan José Zúñiga, who was reportedly faraway from his put up on the eve of Wednesday’s turmoil.
“We won’t permit the armed forces to violate democracy and intimidate the folks,” wrote Morales, who was Bolivia’s first president of Indigenous descent however needed to flee the nation in 2019 after what supporters name a US-backed coup. Morales returned from exile after Arce’s election the next 12 months.
On the eve of his 2020 inauguration, Arce, who’s a UK-educated economist, advised the Guardian: “We’ve reclaimed democracy for Bolivia, and our message is that we are going to not tolerate any type of de facto dictatorial regime or coup in Latin America.”
On Wednesday afternoon, that democracy appeared in peril as tv footage confirmed masked members of the navy police forcing their means into the Palacio Quemado.
The newspaper Los Tiempos quoted the top of Bolivia’s military as saying that Arce remained president “in the intervening time”.
Talking in neighbouring Paraguay, the top of the Group of American States, Luis Almagro, mentioned it could not tolerate “any type of rupture of the authentic constitutional order in Bolivia”.
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