Senator Brandishing Giant Bible Assumes Bolivia Presidency
Bolivia Faces Power Vacuum and More Chaos After Morales Quits
(Bloomberg) -- A Bolivian opposition lawmaker brandishing a giant bible declared herself interim president as the nation tries to fill a power vacuum caused by the ouster of socialist leader Evo Morales.
Senator Jeanine Anez told congress that she would assume the leadership of the Senate, and that under the constitution this makes her interim head of state after Morales fled the country. The nation’s constitutional court backed the move, according to a ruling published on its website.
Anez took over the government headquarters Tuesday evening saying “the bible has returned to the government palace”. Morales oversaw the introduction of a new constitution which put Christianity on an equal footing with other religions.
Morales, who quit Nov. 10, said in a post on Twitter that Anez is “a right-wing coup leader” who had seized power in “the most crafty and nefarious coup in history.”
The U.S., Brazil and the U.K. have recognized Anez as president. Carlos Mesa, the runner-up in the disputed Oct. 20 election, congratulated Anez as “the new constitutional president of Bolivia.”
There has been a power vacuum since Morales resigned under pressure from the military. Morales’ vice president, and the heads of the two houses of congress also quit, leaving Bolivia without a constitutional replacement for the head of state.
Coca growers and other Morales supporters pledged nationwide protests until the ousted president returns. Thousands of Morales supporters marched into the center of La Paz on Wednesday as the army and police guarded the city’s main square, El Deber newspaper reported.
“We’re going to have several more days of marches and social convulsion for sure but the protests aren’t sustainable in the long term,” said Jose Gabriel Espinoza, an adviser to the National Chamber of Commerce. “The critical period for achieving governability is in the next five to seven days. Passing that, the country will probably enter a path toward pacification.”
The nation’s dollar bonds continued to drop on Wednesday, adding to a three-week sell-off, as uncertainty over Bolivia’s future spooked investors. The yield on the bonds maturing in 2028 rose 0.03 percentage point to 5.99%, the highest since February.
Anez has said she aims to call a presidential election and transfer power to a new leader in Jan. 22. To do that, she’ll need to the support of lawmakers from Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism party that dominate Congress to appoint new electoral authorities. The party boycotted Tuesday’s legislative session.
Morales on Tuesday arrived in Mexico, whose government is granting him asylum. His party said in a statement that he fled to escape a plot by Bolivian police to assassinate him.
‘Constitutional Solution’
The crisis reached a head Sunday, after monitors from the Organization of American States said it was unlikely that Morales had really won last month’s election by a big enough margin to avoid a second round. Morales initially offered to hold a new election, then resigned after the army publicly withdrew its support.
Read More: Bolivian Debt Is No-Go as Morales Exit Fuels Investor Doubt
Morales’s departure after more than a decade in power split governments in the Americas and beyond. Russia joined leftist governments in the region, including Mexico, Venezuela and Cuba, in denouncing what the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said Monday appeared to have been “an orchestrated coup.”
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump said the resignation strengthened democracy in the region and praised the military for defending Bolivia’s constitution.
Luis Almagro, the secretary general of the OAS, said Tuesday that Morales had tried to remain in power via electoral fraud, and that was the real coup.
The joint command of Bolivia’s Armed Forces said troops would be deployed nationwide to protect help the police maintain public order.
Morales took office in 2006, and stayed in power longer than any of the leftist leaders who reshaped the continent’s politics during the 2000s.
To contact the reporters on this story: Matthew Bristow in Bogota at mbristow5@bloomberg.net;John Quigley in Lima at jquigley8@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Matthew Bristow
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.