Bolivian police have arrested former interim President Jeanine Anez on charges of terrorism, sedition and conspiracy, a government minister said Saturday.
Anez replaced ex-President Evo Morales in November 2019 when he fled the country amid widespread protests against his reelection to an unconstitutional fourth term.
Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party, which is now back in power, has claimed that Anez and her allies promoted his ouster after almost 14 years in power.
“I inform the Bolivian people that Mrs. Jeanine Anez has already been apprehended and is currently in the hands of the police,” said Interior Minister Carlos Eduardo del Castillo in Twitter and Facebook statements.
The opposition has slammed the actions of the government, with one deputy, Edwin Bazan, saying the MAS party had “mounted a judicial operation to implant the lie that there was a coup d’etat when what there was an [electoral] fraud.”
Anez herself wrote in a Twitter posting before the arrest that the “political persecution has begun.”
Media reports said two former ministers who backed Anez’ one-year caretaker government were also in police detention.❐
