Coup attempt underway in Bolivia as president urges people to mobilize against it

Armored vehicles have rammed into the doors of Bolivia’s government palace, as President Luis Arce says the country faces an attempted coup, insists he stands firm and urges people to mobilize.

In a video of Arce surrounded by ministers in the palace, he says: “The country is facing an attempted coup d’état. Here we are, firm in Casa Grande, to confront any coup attempt. We need the Bolivian people to organize.”

Arce is confronting the general commander of the Army — Juan José Zúñiga, who appears to be leading the rebellion — in the palace hallway, as shown on video on Bolivian television. “I am your captain, and I order you to withdraw your soldiers, and I will not allow this insubordination,” Arce says.

Before entering the government building, Zúñiga tells journalists in the plaza: “Surely soon there will be a new Cabinet of ministers; our country, our state cannot go on like this.” Zúñiga said that “for now” he recognizes Arce as commander-in-chief.

Zúñiga does not explicitly say he’s leading a coup, but in the palace, with bangs echoing behind him, he says the army was trying to “restore democracy and free our political prisoners.”

The leadership of Bolivia’s largest labor union condemns what it called an attempted coup and declared an indefinite strike of social and labor organizations in La Paz in defense of the government.

Bolivia, a country of 12 million people, has seen intensifying protests in recent months over the economy’s precipitous decline from one of the continent’s fastest-growing two decades ago to one of its most crisis-stricken.

The country also has seen a high-profile rift at the highest levels of the governing party. Arce and his one-time ally, leftist icon and former President Morales, have been battling for the future of Bolivia’s splintering Movement for Socialism, known by its Spanish acronym MAS, ahead of elections in 2025.