Beautiful Virgin Islands

Sunday, Jul 20, 2025

Analysis: Questions mount over former president's arrest in Bolivia

Analysis: Questions mount over former president's arrest in Bolivia

She saw it coming.

Even before her arrest in the wee hours of the morning Saturday, former interim Bolivian President Jeanine Áñez published several messages on her Twitter account. "Political persecution has begun," the rightwing politician wrote Friday afternoon. Less than 24 hours later, she would be detained at her home in the city of Trinidad.

Members of her former cabinet were arrested too. Álvaro Coímbra, who served as justice minister under Áñez, and Rodrigo Guzmán, who was her energy minister, were detained as part of a Bolivian police operation apparently targeting officials who served in the previous administration. A local judge has ordered that all three be held in detention for four months while an investigation is carried out.

"I denounce to Bolivia and the world that, in an act of abuse and political persecution, the MAS government has ordered my arrest. They accuse me of participating in a coup that never happened. I pray for Bolivia and all of its people," the 53-year-old Anez tweeted just before her arrest, referencing the country's leftist ruling party Movement Toward Socialism (MAS).

Anez was Bolivia's interim president for barely a year. Once a little-known second-vice-president in the Senate, she took the job in 2019 amid the chaotic fallout of a disputed election that saw then-president Evo Morales resign and flee to Mexico.

Until that point, Morales had ruled Bolivia for three terms -- almost 14 years -- and was hoping for a fourth. Though an international audit would later find the results the 2019 election could not be validated because of "serious irregularities," he declared himself the winner, prompting massive protests around the country.

Then-head of the Bolivian Armed Forces, Cmdr. Williams Kaliman, asked Morales to step down to restore stability and peace; Morales acquiesced on November 10 "for the good of Bolivia."

But political allies maintain he was removed from power as part of a coup orchestrated by conservatives, including Áñez. After Morales resigned, so did Álvaro García Linera, his vice-president, as well as the senate president and the lower house president, creating a power vacuum that Áñez was constitutionally mandated to fill as a caretaker leader.

The next year, her government organized fresh elections. Luis Arce, a Morales protégé, won, and the former president finally returned from exile to Bolivia.

But now that Morales is back, some fear political vengeance will follow.

Vague charges


Altogether, Bolivia's Attorney General's Office has issued arrest warrants against ten officials in the Anez interim government, including the former interim president herself and the two ministers who were already arrested.

The charges are broad and proof scant. According to officials, the charges Ánez and several of her ministers face are terrorism, sedition and conspiracy to commit a coup -- accusations they have rejected fiercely, with Anez herself describing the charges as an act of "political persecution."

Upon his arrest, Coímbra, the former justice minister, said in a video published by Unidad Demócrata, an opposition political coalition, that there was no legal basis for his detention.

"This has no legal validity. Do you know the reason why we are currently detained according to the arrest warrant? It says we have committed the crimes of terrorism, sedition, and others simply because we accepted our posts as ministers. That's it!" Coímbra said in an impromptu statement made behind the bars of a local holding cell.

Standing right next to him in the same cell was Rodrigo Guzmán, energy minister under Áñez. "This is an illegal arrest. They have detained us on the street in [the city of] Trinidad. They could've easily subpoenaed us, and we would've gladly appeared in court. We didn't flee and we won't do it. We will face this process and all of the political things they may throw at us. We are sure that this is just a smokescreen to hide the terrible management of the pandemic," Guzmán said.

The government of President Arce, who won the presidential election in October, has denied that the arrests have anything to do with a political vendetta.

Appearing on national TV, Prime Minister Eduardo del Castillo was unequivocal. "It's very clear that we're not committing any type of political persecution.

We neither act arbitrarily nor intimidate those who think differently. This process had already begun. Justice is taking its course as it is legally proper, and we believe that it has to go on. The justice system has to continue operating independently from whoever is in power," del Castillo said.

A 'pushover system' ?


But international and domestic observers are skeptical that the political and judicial don't overlap in this case.

According to Roberto Laserna, a Bolivian political analyst, Bolivia's justice system and security forces are not structured to ensure complete independence and can be easily controlled by the central government.

He describes it as a "pushover" system: The 2009 constitution stipulates judges should be elected. There have been elections for judges twice, but in both cases the candidates were chosen by the ruling party (MAS) and received less than 8% of the votes. This happened because the voters rejected the selection process by a single party by voting "en blanco" or leaving their ballots blank.

"Bolivian democracy is extremely fragile, weak and susceptible to arbitrary manipulation by whoever happens to be in power at a given time. I believe that what has happened with Jeanine Áñez and her [former] ministers is abusive and an affront to the country all those who believe in democracy," Laserna told CNN.

Accusations of manipulating the Bolivian justice system for political purposes are nothing new in Bolivia. Back in 2009, then-President Evo Morales upon arrival in Venezuela claimed that police forces had dismantled a right-wing conspiracy that planned to assassinate him and his vice-president Álvaro García
Linera. Three men holding foreign passports died in a shootout at a hotel in the city of Santa Cruz.

Ten years later, the government of Jeanine Añez dismissed the case, saying it had all been staged so that the leftist government cold target political rivals in the city of Santa Cruz. The prosecutor in charge of the case fled the country in 2014 and is now living in exile in Brazil.

Áñez herself did face accusations of abusing power during her short term. Critics said that the Roman Catholic who brought the Bible back to government proceedings after Morales secularized them was a little too fast to use state security forces to quash indigenous protests around the country. But did she really plot a coup?

Laserna believes such an allegation would be a stretch. Áñez was not in a position of great power at the time of the 2019 crisis, he says, adding that Morales also had put himself into an untenable position by running for yet another term.

"It can be said that Evo Morales felt he was forced to resign. He was indeed forced to resign. That's evident. People in the streets forced him to resign because he had manipulated justice. He had promised not to run again, and he did. He had called for a referendum which he later ignored. There was a series of acts showing that he was somebody people could no longer trust, and I believe that's why people forced him to resign," Laserna said.

José Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch Americas Division, has also expressed doubt about the arrests, saying Saturday, "The arrest warrants against Añez and her ministers do not contain any evidence that they have committed the crime of 'terrorism'."

"For this reason, they generate well-founded doubts that it is a process based on political motives," he added.

And another former Bolivian president, Jorge Fernando "Tuto" Quiroga, who governed from 2001 to 2002, has joined the chorus of domestic and international leaders decrying Áñez's detention.

In a video posted to Twitter, Quiroga suggested that what's happening to Áñez goes beyond a political vendetta. "With a fable, they're seeking to change a history we in Bolivia know by heart about what has happened. Sadly, because of the electoral loss, and so that Evo Morales can save face after cowardly fleeing the country [current President] Luis Arce has decided something unheard of in the history of Latin America by criminalizing a constitutional succession," Quiroga said.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
Hong Kong Advances Digital Asset Strategy to Address Economic Challenges
Australia Rules Out Pre‑commitment of Troops, Reinforces Defence Posture Amid US‑China Tensions
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
U.S. Resumes Deportations to Third Countries After Supreme Court Ruling
Excavation Begins at Site of Mass Grave for Children at Former Irish Institution
Iranian President Reportedly Injured During Israeli Strike on Secret Facility
EU Delays Retaliatory Tariffs Amid New U.S. Threats on Imports
Trump Defends Attorney General Pam Bondi Amid Epstein Memo Backlash
Renault Shares Drop as CEO Luca de Meo Announces Departure Amid Reports of Move to Kering
Senior Aides for King Charles and Prince Harry Hold Secret Peace Summit
Anti‑Semitism ‘Normalised’ in Middle‑Class Britain, Says Commission Co‑Chair
King Charles Meets David Beckham at Chelsea Flower Show
If the Department is Really About Justice: Ghislaine Maxwell Should Be Freed Now
NYC Candidate Zohran Mamdani’s ‘Antifada’ Remarks Spark National Debate on Political Language and Economic Policy
President Trump Visits Flood-Ravaged Texas, Praises Community Strength and First Responders
×