(La Paz) After the failed attempt by a group of soldiers to overthrow President Luis Arce, Bolivia is entering a new period of political turbulence against a backdrop of economic crisis.
The 2025 presidential election in the spotlight is whetting appetites, while unease reigns within the military institution against a backdrop of popular discontent over rising prices and shortages in a country whose gas and lithium resources are causing concern. yet international interest.
Under the command of the head of the army, General Juan José Zuniga, soldiers and armor took up positions briefly on Wednesday in front of the parliament and the presidential palace without serious clashes, except for 14 civilians injured.
General Zuniga, arrested along with 20 other active duty soldiers, retirees, and civilians, claimed to have acted on orders from the president who asked him to “stage something to increase his popularity.”
Mr Arce vigorously denied: “How could anyone order or plan a self-coup? […] He acted on his own initiative.”
The opposition denounces it as a “farce”.
But beyond the suspicions and dark sides, “I think there is a deep unease within the armed forces,” Gustavo Flores-Macias, of Cornell University in the United States, told AFP. .
“But the fact that the coup was contained so quickly proves that, for the moment, civil power has the upper hand,” he believes.
Supported by his supporters and the international community, the Bolivian president emerges strengthened from what he described as an “attempted coup d’état”.
“In the short term, this will strengthen his government […] But it will be short-lived,” observes Pablo Calderon, of Northeastern University in London.
With just over a year remaining in his mandate that began in 2020, Mr. Arce faces multiple fronts.
On the social level with the discontent of the powerful trade and goods transport unions due to the economic slowdown. On the political level with a wing of his party, the Movement towards Socialism (MAS), remained loyal to former president Evo Morales (2006-2019) who intends to represent himself under the banner of the MAS which he created.
This ephemeral uprising “will give a boost” to his very likely candidacy for re-election in 2025, because it was “a demonstration of his authority”, estimates analyst Carlos Cordero, of the Catholic University of Bolivia.
Evo Morales, the first indigenous head of state who ruled for three terms, wants to return to power despite a decision by the Constitutional Court banning him on the grounds that he had already served more than the number authorized by the constitution. A decision that he contests and considers “political”.
In 2019, while running for a fourth term, he was forced to resign after protests denouncing electoral fraud. He went into exile for a year under a right-wing interim government before returning with the victory of Luis Arce, his former finance minister.
The two men now engaged in a power struggle have become enemies.
On Wednesday, faced with the military uprising, Evo Morales called on his supporters to mobilize in favor of democracy, without ever mentioning Mr. Arce.
If Luis Arce is in charge today, the former coca leaf farmer continues “to be the moral leader of the Bolivian left and it will be very difficult for Arce to put him in a box or exclude him” of any political negotiation process, believes the Cornell University analyst.
With a population of around 12 million, Bolivia is going through a deep crisis as revenues from gas exports, its main source of foreign exchange until 2023, fall due to a lack of investment. .
And fewer exports mean fewer dollars and fewer imports of fuel that the state sells at subsidized prices.
At the same time, the cost of living has increased, strangling low-income households.
What happened on Wednesday “does nothing to improve the economic situation, on the contrary it makes it more difficult […] uncertainty tends to be bad for business,” says the Northeastern University academic.
And the failure of the military coup will increase the “sense of crisis” felt by Bolivians, notes Professor Macias-Flores.
