Preventive prison for Jeanine Áñez: the Bolivian government presents 4 new trials against former president

The former president has been charged with the crimes of sedition, conspiracy and terrorism in a process that is carried out in ordinary courts.

Morales resigned from the presidency in November 2019, two days before Áñez assumed power, after weeks of street protests, a police mutiny and the request for his resignation by the military leadership.

The evism described what happened as a “coup.”

The liability lawsuits that the Bolivian government intends to open against Áñez are related to the international indebtedness assumed by his administration and to alleged crimes of wasteful conduct and improper use of influence in a public tender.

The other two processes promoted by the Ministry of Justice have to do with the case of Bolivian residents in Chile who were not authorized to return to their country for weeks and a supreme decree issued by Áñez in the first days of the pandemic that is indicated for having restricted freedom of expression.

The four propositions of judgment of responsibilities were delivered by the government to the Attorney General of the State.

The Ministry of Justice anticipated that “in the following weeks” another legal action will be presented against the ex-president, her collaborators, the military and the police for the “bloody massacres” that occurred at the end of 2019, in reference to the more than 30 deaths in the towns rural areas of Senkata and Sacaba.

Áñez said that the processes announced against him are political persecution and described the government of Luis Arce Catacora as “dictatorial”.

For her part, Carolina Ribera, daughter of the former president, indicated that the trials against her mother are part of a revenge ordered by Evo Morales.

In addition to the ex-president, the former ministers of Justice Álvaro Coímbra and Rodrigo Guzmán were also sent to prison on a preventive basis.

Morales participated in the October 2019 elections with the aim of achieving a fourth consecutive presidential term.

That decision was questioned from the beginning by its detractors, who pointed out that it was prevented by the Constitution and a 2016 referendum in which the majority of the electorate opposed that possibility.

Despite this, the ex-president achieved his goal of being qualified for those elections in which he was a favorite, but without a guaranteed victory in the first round.

After the vote, in which Morales was proclaimed the winner, a series of complaints about irregularities on election day sparked protests that lasted for three weeks.

The then president reacted by asking his followers to defend his electoral victory in the streets, causing both sides to paralyze several of the country’s main cities.

The tension reached such a point that the police decided to riot and the high command of the armed forces suggested that Morales step aside.

The Central Obrera Boliviana, which brings together the country’s urban unions, also called for the presidential resignation.

On November 10, hours after a preliminary report was released in which the OAS considered that the results of the election were not reliable, Morales resigned from his position and two days later Áñez assumed command.

Evo was asylum in Mexico and Argentina before returning to Bolivia at the end of 2020, after the presidential inauguration of Arce Catacora.

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