In a twist, Zúñiga claimed in comments to journalists before his arrest that Arce himself told the general to storm the palace in a political move. “The president told me: ‘The situation is very screwed up, very critical. It is necessary to prepare something to raise my popularity’,” Zúñiga quoted the Bolivian leader as saying.
Zúñiga sajd he asked Arce if he should “take out the armored vehicles?” and Arce replied, “Take them out.”
Justice Minister Iván Lima denied Zúñiga’s claims, saying the general was lying and trying to justify his actions for which he said he will face justice.
Prosecutors will seek the maximum sentence of 15 to 20 years in prison for Zúñiga, Lima said via the social media platform X, “for having attacked democracy and the Constitution.”
The spectacle shocked Bolivians, no stranger to political unrest; in 2019 Morales was ousted as president following an earlier political crisis.
As the crisis unfolded Wednesday, Arce confronted Zúñiga in the palace hallway, as shown on video on Bolivian television. “I am your captain, and I order you to withdraw your soldiers, and I will not allow this insubordination,” Arce said.
Surrounded by ministers, he added: “Here we are, firm in Casa Grande, to confront any coup attempt. We need the Bolivian people to organize.”
Less than an hour later, Arce announced new heads of the army, navy and air force amid the roar of supporters, and thanked the country’s police and regional allies for standing by him. Arce said the troops who rose against him were “staining the uniform” of the military.
“I order all that are mobilized to return to their units,” said the newly named army chief José Wilson Sánchez. “No one wants the images we’re seeing in the streets.”
Shortly after, the armored vehicles roared out of the plaza, tailed by hundreds of military fighters as police in riot gear set up blockades outside the government palace.
The incident was met with a wave of outrage by other regional leaders, including the Organization of American States, Chilean President Gabriel Boric, the leader of Honduras, and former Bolivian leaders.
Gustavo Flores-Macias, a professor of government and public policy focusing on Latin America at Cornell University, said it’s important that world leaders and organizations keep up their condemnation of the coup attempt as developments unfold.
“If we allow the interruption of the constitutional order to take place in Bolivia, it could serve a demonstration effect,” Flores-Macias said from New York in an interview with The Associated Press. “It could send a signal that if this is OK to happen in Bolivia, it could happen elsewhere.”
Bolivia has seen intensifying protests in recent months over the economy’s precipitous decline from one of the continent’s fastest-growing two decades ago to one of its most crisis-stricken.
Arce and Morales have been battling for the future of Bolivia’s splintering Movement for Socialism, known by its Spanish acronym MAS, ahead of elections in 2025.
Following Wednesday’s chaos, reports on local media showed Bolivians stocking up on food and other essentials in supermarkets, concerned about what will come next.
But addressing supporters outside the presidential palace, the country’s vice president, David Choquehuanca, vowed: “Never again will the Bolivian people permit coup attempts.”