democracy faltered around President Luis Arce

A Bolivian general, head of the army, positioned his armored vehicles in front of the presidential palace in La Paz on Wednesday. The president, in power for four years, did not give in and Bolivia avoided a major crisis. But this does not bode well for the future.

“Democracy has been saved,” exclaimed Luis Arce from the balcony of the Presidential Palace, in front of a crowd that had come to celebrate the failure of the coup. The Bolivian president also installed the new commander of the armed forces after the arrest of General Juan José Zuniga, the man who tried to overthrow him on Wednesday, June 26. Another military official, the head of the Navy, was also arrested for armed uprising and terrorism. The motivations of the putschists are not very clear: the former head of the army, now deposed, explained that he wanted “restructuring democracy”In fact, rumors have been circulating since Tuesday about the possible dismissal of this high-ranking officer.

However, Juan José Zuniga had taken a position against the possible candidacy of former president Morales, rival of Luis Arce in the same left-wing party, the Movement towards Socialism (MAS). The upcoming presidential elections in 2025 are expected to see the two candidates, Luis Arce and Evo Morales, fighting for the party nomination. The general also confided that it was the current president himself, Luis Arce, who asked him to stage this coup d’état, to increase his popularity rating, which is impossible to verify.

To understand, we have to go back five years. In 2019, faced with Evo Morales’ stubbornness in wanting to stay in power, unrest broke out in Bolivia. It lasted several weeks. Former President Morales was forced to resign and temporarily leave Bolivia. An opposition senator, Jeanine Anez Chavez, then took the reins of power, which she would only hold for a year. She was then thrown in prison for sedition, and she is still there.

When a new election was held in 2020, the left returned to power through the Movement Towards Socialism, the MAS. But for several months, the party has been divided between supporters of the current president, Luis Arce, and those of Evo Morales, who has already put himself forward as a candidate for 2025. In principle, he cannot run for a third term, by decision of the Bolivian Constitutional Court.

As for Luis Arce, he has not yet made his decision known but it is very likely that he will run again. There would therefore be two candidates under the same socialist party banner. Two men whose rivalry continues to grow. If the crisis persists, the right would have an unexpected chance of regaining the presidency of Bolivia in 2025.