# Bolivian # BBC
Now let's move on to Bolivia where hundreds of soldiers with armoured vehicles have withdraw from the presidential palace after what appeared to be an attempted military coup. Heavily armed troops had taken over the city's main square with one armoured car trying to ram the doors of the presidential palace. Bolivia's president denounced what he called the irregular mobilisation by some units of the Bolivian army saying democracy must be respected.
He then addressed the nation alongside his cabinet calling on the Bolivian people and social groups to mobilise against the attempted coup. The president and vice president have also greeted supporters in the Plaza Murillo after police retook control. The public prosecutor's says it's to launch a criminal investigation against a top general, Juan Jose Zuniga and others for leading the insurrection.
Well, let's now speak to our Colombia correspondent for BBC Mundo, Jose Calas Curieto. Good to have you on the programme. So just explain in more detail what was going on in Bolivia.
It's been a very tumultuous 24 hours, hasn't it?Yeah, there seem to be calmer hours now in Bolivia after the leader of what appeared to be this attempted coup was arrested, General Juan Jose Zuniga, who actually until Tuesday used to be the head of the army in the country. This happened a few hours after, as you were mentioning, heavily armed military took over and then retreated from Murillo Square in La Paz in Bolivia, where the presidential building and other key government buildings are situated. What is more striking is that at the moment of his arrest, of the arrest of Zuniga, he accused the president, Luis Arce, of being behind this allegedly attempted coup to raise his popularity, something that cannot be proved at the moment.
As you were mentioning as well, a criminal investigation by the public prosecutor might shed some clarity on this.Could you just put this in context for us and what led up to the events of this week? I think first we need to look at the economic situation that Bolivia is going through, with the scarcity of dollars and fuel that has sparked several demonstrations over the last few months. But moreover, we need to look at the power struggle that current president Luis Arce and former president Evo Morales are holding.
They used to be close allies, but they are now rivals. And Morales is insisting on running for the presidential elections in 2025, even though he's barred from doing that because of a constitutional court that ruled that in December 2023. And this has created tensions between Morales and Arce, between the supporters of Morales, between the supporters of Arce.
And Zuniga, the military leader who was appointed as the head of the army in 2022 by current president Arce, was a heavy critic of Morales. And on Monday, during a TV interview, he said that he threatened to arrest Morales if he ran for the presidency in 2025. #views_viral_video_subscribers_grow #100m #like
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