Bolivian President Evo Morales was forced to resign on Sunday 10 November 2019 after senior army and police chiefs called on him to do so following weeks of right-wing unrest and violence against his Oct. 20 elections victory, in what his government has called a coup by opposition forces in the country.
On the same day world leaders and organizations expressed their solidarity with former Bolivian President Evo Morales under the hashtag #ElMundoconEvo (the World with Evo) and strongly condemned the right-wing coup which forced Morales to resign.
Opposition Lawmaker Jeanine Añez from the Democratic Union party has stated she will assume Bolivia’s Interim Presidency. Añez assured she will call for new elections on Monday.
As the second deputy senate majority leader, the Senator is the first official in line for succession after Vice President, Senate Majority Leader and First Deputy Majority Leader who resigned under menace by opposition thugs who held their relatives hostage, following Evo Morales’ decision to resign on Sunday afternoon.
Supreme Electoral Tribunal President María Eugenia Choque Quispe was arrested on 10 Nov. 2019 after the resignation of President Evo Morales. teleSUR’s correspondent on the ground Freddy Morales has reported that the Attorney General’s office has issued arrest warrants for all leaders of the electoral tribunal and members of the body.
Former President of the National Assembly and current Minister of Health Gabriela Montaño denounced that police are “illegally intending to arrest Evo Morales. We denounce this madness to the world.
Audio recordings leaked via social media featured Bolivian opposition leaders mentioning that US senators Ted Cruz, Bob Menendez and Marco Rubio were committed to the coup agenda. <https://sputniknews.com/latam/201911111077282328-audios-containing-details-of-alleged-coup-plan–us-involvement-emerge-amid-bolivian-crisis/?fbclid=IwAR0nsVTIgMhUuxjwOxJEsTtOYXm6zZx-Ji5efcVKXrJNgHTzVQBqa-8_IHc>
Mexico’s Minister of Foreign Affairs @m_ebrard confirms that they have received 20 officials from the Bolivian executive and legislature in the Mexican diplomatic residence in La Paz, while also offering asylum to Evo Morales if needed.
teleSUR brings you live updates of the unfolding right-wing attempted coup against the Bolivian government of President Evo Morales (at https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Live-Updates-Bolivian-Army-Chief-Advises-Evo-Morales-to-Resign-20191109-0008.html)
Bolivian Parliament, by a majority vote and with a quorum, elected the new head of the lower house, Sergio Choke.
Like Morales, Choke is a representative of the indigenous peoples of Bolivia, who make up the majority of the population. Choke said that Evo Morales is the constitutional president of the country, after which he issued a decree requiring the army to leave the streets of Bolivian cities and return to the barracks. De jure a dual power has formed – a parliament that supports Morales and the coup organizers led by self-proclaimed interim president Jeanine Anez. In the coming days, the parties will obviously consolidate their forces for the subsequent struggle for power. Against the backdrop of large-scale protests of the indigenous population and peasants, as well as some trade unions, which stated that they did not recognize the coup’s seizure of power, the Chamber of Deputies of the Bolivian Parliament announced that the deputies did not recognize the coup and considered Evo Morales the legitimate president of the country.
At the same time, only Morales’ party has a quorum to take decisions, but the coup-organizers are clearly not interesting in taking such decisions and are attempting to act unilaterally. Essentially, the coup-plotters can now only resign to force to impose their rule and push Morales’ resignation through. Evo Morales also announced that he considers himself the president of Bolivia, until Parliament resigns. And since the resignation was not accepted by the Parliament, then Morales is still the president legally, and the coup-plotters cannot legally legitimize the seizure of power.
Meanwhile, more than 1000 supporters of Morales have been arrested per day, the scope of repression against opponents of the coup is progressively escalating, and a civil war is dangerously close. https://southfront.org/bolivian-parliament-elects-new-head-refuses-to-acknowledge-self-proclaimed-president-jeanine-anez/
Throughout three weeks since the electoral day of last Sunday, October 20, a sophisticated operation carried out by radical racist sectors of the political opposition, private media, the US embassy and the Organization of American States (OAS), has sought to cast Bolivian society back into times of dictatorships and neoliberal policies, to privatize the natural resources of the Bolivian people and submit it to the designs of the White House and transnational corporations.
The international community must not remain impassive in the face of this outrage against democracy and the institutions of a country, whose government for almost fourteen years has guaranteed social peace, driven by remarkable economic growth, which is the result of the rescue of national sovereignty over natural resources, which has made it possible to guarantee the cohesion and social inclusion of its population, historically discriminated and fractured.
President Nicolás Maduro, the Bolivarian Government and the Venezuelan People, accompany the sister people of Bolivia in the current struggles for the defence of their sovereignty, their democracy and their right to live in peace.. https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/statement-bolivarian-republic-venezuela-coup-bolivia?fbclid=IwAR1f8eXUlJnfr3-1t3WWFP0xZxwRCGHwzrqLcus_NCTtjX0KF8D-46GEPQY
If the U.S. cared, it “would not have threatened with military intervention democratically elected governments as it has done with #Venezuela,” the Bolivian president continued in his denunciation of American violations of #InternationalLaw. “The United States could not care less about human rights nor justice. If this were the case, it would have signed the international conventions and treaties for the have protection of human rights. “In no way is the United States interested in upholding democracy. If such were the case it would not have financed coups d’etat and supported dictators,” said Evo Morales, President of Bolivia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLfrlsC1yJ2dQFFT0ECeDiB_WM3bu-YVXF&v=O9rFd1RvncI&feature=emb_logo
“A military coup” is happening in Bolivia, CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot says. “Nobody voted for Williams Kaliman, the commander of the Bolivian armed forces. Some of the major media are already burying the fact it was he who pushed Evo [Morales] out of the presidency. Bolivia no longer has an elected, legitimate government.” http://accuracy.org/release/bolivia-what-a-coup-looks-like?fbclid=IwAR3NCOXDTELN38-va3_RIPpKXmQocDma6Y-MI1c7cCfH8R0sxPwHWmCsqaQ