Coup attempt in Bolivia fails as army flees government palaceExBulletin

LA PAZ, Bolivia Armored vehicles crashed through the doors of Bolivia's government building on Wednesday in an apparent coup attempt, but President Luis Arce vowed to stand firm and appointed a new army chief who ordered troops to withdraw .

The soldiers soon withdrew, 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 to the crowd. “Thank you to the Bolivian people,” he said. “Long live democracy.”

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

However, in a twist, Ziga claimed before his arrest that Arce himself told the general to attack the palace in a political move. “The president told me: 'The situation is very broken, very critical. It is necessary to prepare something to increase my popularity,'” Ziga told reporters.

Ziga sajd he asked Arce if he should “take out the armored vehicles?” and Arce replied, “Bring it out.”

Wednesday's rebellion followed months of tension, with economic hardship and protests intensifying as the two political titans Arce and his one-time ally, former leftist President Evo Morales, battled for control of the ruling party.

However, the apparent attempt to oust the incumbent president appeared to lack any significant support, with even Arce's rivals closing ranks to defend democracy and dismiss the uprising.

The spectacle shocked Bolivians, no stranger to political turmoil; in 2019 Morales was ousted as president after a previous political crisis.

As the crisis unfolded on Wednesday, military vehicles flooded the square. Before entering the government building, Ziga, the army commander-in-chief, told reporters: “There will probably be a new cabinet of ministers soon; our country, our state cannot continue like this.” Ziga said that “for the time being”, however, he recognized Arce as commander-in-chief.

Ziga did not explicitly say he was leading a coup, but at the palace, he said the army was trying to “restore democracy and free our political prisoners.”

Shortly thereafter, Arce confronted Ziga in the palace hallway, as shown on video on Bolivian television. “I am your captain and I command you to withdraw your soldiers and I will not allow this disobedience,” Arce said.

Surrounded by ministers, he added: “Here we are, stationed in Casa Grande, to face any coup attempt. We need the Bolivian people to organize.”

He added in a video message that he would not “allow, once again, coup attempts to take the lives of Bolivians.”

Less than an hour later, Arce announced the new heads of the army, navy and air force amid roars of supporters and thanked the country's police and regional allies for standing by him. Arce said the troops who rose up against him were “staining the uniform” of the army.

“I order all those who have been mobilized to return to their units,” said newly appointed army chief Jos Wilson Snchez. “Nobody wants the images we're seeing on the streets.”

Soon after, armored vehicles rolled out of the square, followed by hundreds of military fighters, while police in riot gear set up blockades outside the government building.

The incident was met with a wave of outrage from other regional leaders, including the Organization of American States, Chilean President Gabriel Boric, the Honduran leader and former Bolivian leaders.

Bolivia, a country of 12 million people, has seen protests intensify in recent months over the economy's rapid decline from one of the continent's fastest-growing countries two decades ago to one of the hardest hit by the crisis.

The country has also seen a high-profile rift at the highest levels of the ruling party. Arce and his one-time ally, Morales, have been fighting over the future of Bolivia's breakaway Movement for Socialism, known by its Spanish acronym MAS, ahead of elections in 2025.

After Wednesday's chaos, local media reports showed Bolivians stocking up on food and other essentials in supermarkets, worried about what comes next.

But in front of supporters outside the presidential palace, the country's vice president David Choquehuanca vowed: “Never again will the Bolivian people allow a coup attempt.”