After a failed attempt by a group of military personnel to overthrow President Luis Arce, Bolivia is entering a new period of political turbulence amid an economic crisis.
The 2025 presidential election in the spotlight is whetting appetites, while unease reigns within the military institution against a backdrop of popular discontent over rising prices and shortages in a country whose gas and lithium resources are causing concern. yet international interest.
The army
Under the command of the army chief, General Juan José Zuniga, soldiers and armoured vehicles briefly took up position on Wednesday in front of the parliament and the presidential palace without serious clashes, except for 14 injured civilians.
General Zuniga, arrested along with 20 other active-duty, retired and civilian military personnel, claimed to have acted on the orders of the president, who had asked him to “stage something to increase his popularity.”
Mr. Arce vigorously denied: “How could one order or plan a self-coup? […] He acted on his own. »
The opposition, for its part, denounces a “farce”.
But beyond the suspicions and dark sides, “I think there is a deep unease within the armed forces,” Gustavo Flores-Macias, of Cornell University in the United States, told AFP. . “But the fact that the coup was contained so quickly proves that, for the moment, civilian power has the upper hand,” he believes.
Luis Arce reinforced
Supported by his supporters and the international community, the Bolivian president emerges strengthened from what he described as an “attempted coup d’état”.
“In the short term, this will strengthen his government […] But it will be short-lived,” observes Pablo Calderon, of Northeastern University in London.
With just over a year to go in his 2020 term, Mr. Arce faces multiple fronts.
On the social level with the discontent of the powerful trade and freight transport unions due to the economic slowdown. On the political level with a wing of his party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), which remained loyal to former President Evo Morales (2006-2019) who intends to run again under the banner of the MAS that he created.
This ephemeral uprising will “give a boost” to his very likely candidacy for re-election in 2025, because it was “a demonstration of his authority”, estimates analyst Carlos Cordero, of the Catholic University of Bolivia.
Evo Morales decided
Evo Morales, the first indigenous head of state who ruled for three terms, wants to return to power despite a decision by the Constitutional Court barring him on the grounds that he had already served more than the number authorized by the constitution. A decision that he contests and considers “political”.
In 2019, while running for a fourth term, he was forced to resign after protests denouncing electoral fraud. He went into exile for a year under a right-wing interim government before returning with the victory of Luis Arce, his former finance minister.
The two men now engaged in a power struggle have become enemies.
On Wednesday, in the face of the military uprising, Evo Morales called on his supporters to mobilize in favor of democracy, without ever mentioning Mr. Arce.
While Luis Arce is now in charge, the former coca leaf farmer continues “to be the moral leader of the Bolivian left and it will be very difficult for Arce to put him in a box or exclude him” from any political negotiation process, believes the Cornell University analyst.
The economy
With a population of around 12 million, Bolivia is going through a deep crisis as revenues from gas exports, its main source of foreign exchange until 2023, fall due to a lack of investment. .
And fewer exports mean fewer dollars and fewer imports of fuel, which the state sells at subsidized prices.
At the same time, the cost of living has increased, strangling low-income households.
What happened on Wednesday “in no way improves the economic situation, on the contrary it makes it more difficult […] uncertainty tends to be bad for business,” says the Northeastern University academic.
And the failure of the military coup will increase the “sense of crisis” felt by Bolivians, notes Professor Macias-Flores.