Bolivian President: Attempted coup d’état

Military vehicles have rammed through the doors of Bolivia’s government palace.

– The country is facing an attempted coup d’état, says the country’s president Luis Arce.

He also says it is ready to deal with any coup attempt, and he has announced three new leaders of Bolivia’s armed forces.

Video clips on television in Bolivia show the country’s President Luis Arce confronting military commander Juan José Zúñiga inside the palace.

– I order you to withdraw your soldiers, and I will not allow this disobedience, says Arce.

Zúñiga, who has not explicitly announced that he is leading a coup d’état, says the military is trying to “restore democracy and free our political prisoners.”

“Democracy must be respected”

In a video that has been sent to the media, Arce says that “we cannot allow, once again, coup attempts to take the lives of Bolivians”.

– The Bolivian people need to organize and mobilize against the coup d’état, he says.

In a message on X, Arce previously called for “democracy to be respected”.

Zúñiga said earlier that the three leaders of the armed forces had come to express their “horror”.

“There will be a new cabinet of ministers, certainly things will change, but our country can no longer continue in this way,” said the designated coup leader, Commander-in-Chief Juan José Zúñiga, to a local television channel, according to Reuters.

More intense protests

Former president Evo Morales previously condemned the military’s actions in a post on X, calling it a coup “in the making”.

In recent months, the country, which has a population of twelve million people, has had increasingly intense protests against the economic development in the country.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell writes on X that the Union condemns “all attempts to undermine the constitutional order in Bolivia”.