The Bolivia the next day it strange attempted coup led by the general Juan José Zuñiga she seems to have already put everything behind her. The major local news sites seem more concerned with giving the results of the latest Copa America matches that of following the developments of a coup d’état which it wasn’t. Yet it is already there who insinuates that behind the assault on the Government PalaceWednesday afternoon, there are too many mysteries. The first to sow doubt was Zuñiga himself, the commander of the rebel army who was removed from office on Tuesday after his not so veiled threats to the former president Evo Morales. In a television interview he had in fact said he was ready to arrest him if he continued his candidacy for the presidential elections in November 2025. Immediately after the arrest, he went further, accusing the current president Luis Arcea former ally of Morales and now his bitter adversary, of having plotted a a sort of self-coup to strengthen one’s own popularityin sharp decline.
“It is necessary to prepare something to increase my popularity,” Arce reportedly told the general last Sunday, according to the latter’s reconstruction, before authorizing him to “bring out the armored vehicles.” The government immediately categorically denied his confession Juan José Zuñiga, who now faces 15 to 20 years in prison for terrorism and armed insurrection against security and state sovereignty.
Doubts, however, remain. Even some followers of former president Evo Morales, opponents of other currents and political analysts have raised doubts that the brief occupation by the military in Plaza Murillo, in La Paz, from 3pm to 5.30pm on a Wednesday afternoon, it was a “show” orchestrated by the president to regain consensus in the face of a growing economic crisis and Morales’ public attacks. Senator Luis Adolfo Flores, for example, indicated it as “surprising” that, despite the movement of a strong military contingent at kilometer zero (as Piazza Murillo is called by the Bolivians) there was no reaction from the police, that indeed she immediately left the area. “The ministers in Plaza Murillo were walking around like ballerinas,” observed former minister Carlos Romero.
Juan José Zuñiga, moreover, has always been considered a trusted man of President Arce, which had appointed him as army commander in 2022 despite some blemishes on his military record. Zuñiga was considered “the general of the people”, due to his closeness to the mining and trade union sectors. In the past, however, was accused of having diverted 2.7 million bolivianos (around 400,000 euros) of public funds when he was in command of an infantry regiment. Despite this, Arce had chosen him for perhaps the most important and delicate task in the armed forces. Subsequently, Morales accused him of being the leader of a group within the army – the “Pachajchos” – and was ready to launch a “permanent persecution” of political leaders hostile to the president.
Certainly, the Arce presidency now emerges strengthenedat least internationally, after the wave of solidarity that reached him both from neighboring South American countries, worried about the risk of a “coup contagion” on the continent, and from many international leaders, such as the President of the European Commission von der Leyen, US President Joe Biden and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin. It remains to be seen whether the fragile balance with Morales, who withdrew the call for a general strike against the government, the many doubts surrounding what happened and the economic crisis that Bolivia is experiencing will allow Arce to complete his presidential mandate peacefully until next year’s vote.
