Members of the Bolivian military gathered Wednesday outside the presidential palace, the country’s president, Luis Arce, speaking on platform Xappears to be an attempt by a general to take over a government building.
Video on Bolivian television showed the country’s main political square occupied by security forces in riot gear, a camouflage tank crashing into the palace doors and soldiers trying to enter the palace.
Standing in front of the palace doors Wednesday afternoon and surrounded by members of the armed forces, Gen. Juan José Zúñiga, announced that the Bolivian Army, air force and navy had been “mobilized.”
“The police force is also with us,” he said in La Paz, the country’s administrative capital.
According to local reporters, he then briefly entered the palace.
A key minister in Mr. Arce’s government, María Nela Prada, speaking in a video shot from a building overlooking the occupied square, denounced the move as a “coup attempt.”
Ministers were holding a meeting inside when the army arrived. On X, Mr. Arce, a leftist and handpicked successor of former President Evo Morales, denounced the effort.
“Democracy must be respected,” he said.
Mr. Morales declared a “coup”, is underway. “At this time, Armed Forces personnel and tanks are deployed in Plaza Murillo,” he said on social networks. “Let’s call on social movements in the countryside and cities to defend democracy.”
Local media reported that Mr. Zuñiga was dismissed this week, which some in the country said was related to comments he made about Mr. Morales.
The move was immediately criticized by some regional leaders, including President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil. “Coups have never succeeded” he told reporters on Wednesday.
