Authors: Lucinda Elliott, Monica Macicao and Daniel Ramos
(Reuters) – Bolivia’s leftist President Luis Arce instructed Reuters on Friday that his authorities would proceed to work till the final day as help on the streets strengthened after a failed navy coup days in the past, the primary day for the reason that dramatic assault. That is his first interview since.
The quiet economist was thrust into the worldwide highlight on Wednesday when rogue navy forces seized La Paz’s central sq. and rammed an armored car into the gates of the presidential palace, permitting troopers to hurry inside.
Surrounded by armed troopers, rogue normal Juan José Zuniga demanded a reorganization of the federal government. Arce warned that the landlocked nation of about 12 million individuals was dealing with a coup and known as on supporters to mobilize.
He ordered the final to his face to step down, and inside hours the troopers retreated as help for the coup collapsed.
Zuniga and dozens of others have since been arrested. Regardless of Bolivia’s checkered historical past, which has seen some 190 coups in simply two centuries, the assault was Bolivia’s most high-profile try and overthrow its authorities in recent times.
Arce was a pupil of Karl Marx who drove Bolivia’s “financial miracle” within the early 2000s.
“For us, nothing has modified… We’ll proceed to work till the final day,” he mentioned at authorities headquarters in La Paz, the political capital of the highlands, the place armed troopers stormed days earlier from simply meters away.
Arce and Morales, though from the identical Socialist Celebration and former allies, have develop into fierce rivals. Morales, who resigned in 2019 after a disputed election sparked violent protests, hopes to switch Arce within the 2025 presidential election.
Arce, 60, acknowledged that Bolivia’s gas-producing economic system is below monetary strain, resulting in shortages of {dollars} and gasoline and rising voter discontent.
“There’s a momentary lack of liquidity within the U.S. greenback,” Arce mentioned, including that his authorities had taken “a number of measures” to handle the issue, with out giving particular particulars.
The president blamed “exterior and inside pursuits” for growing financial strain on the nation “who do not like us industrializing our pure sources,” referring to the nation’s pure fuel and large however untapped lithium reserves.
“They do not like that we occupy a really sovereign place within the nationwide economic system.”
