Former Bolivian President Evo Morales called on his supporters last week to take part in a “March to Save Bolivia”.
The march reportedly stretched 190 kilometers (118 miles), from the village of Caracollo to the capital La Paz. It started off peacefully on Tuesday morning.
However, a few hours later, nearly 10,000 pro-Morales protesters faced hundreds of counter-protesters using tear gas, rocks and fireworks. An effigy of Morales was also burned.
The counter-protesters were supporters of current president Luis Arce.
Chants of “Evo, Bolivia asks you to come back,” were heard from pro-Morales (Evistas) protesters while pro-Arce (Arcistas) protesters reportedly shouted “Evo, traitor, your time is up.”
Associated Press reporters also saw pro-Morales protesters chasing pro-Arce activists, beating them with sticks, pushing them to the floor and kicking them.
Ombudsman Pedro Callisaya said there had also been attacks on members of the assembly and journalists who had reported on the protests, according to The reason. He described this violence as “generating an atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty, not only among the people at the scene, but among the entire population.”
Arce and Morales were once allies, belonging to the same political party, the Movement for Socialism (MAS). Arce served as economy minister under Morales and, when Morales left Bolivia in 2019 following allegations of vote rigging, he specifically chose Arce to be the presidential candidate for MAS in the 2020 general election.
Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, spent a year in exile. He was charged by the right-wing interim government with sedition, terrorism and statutory rape, and a warrant was issued for his arrest, though it was later overturned.
Arce won the 2020 elections and Morales, who had celebrated the results, returned from Argentina to Bolivia in November 2020, met by thousands of supporters. However, Arce made it clear that Morales would have “no role” in his new government.
By September 2023, Morales had announced that he would run for the 2025 elections.
Then, in October 2023, President Arce and his Vice President, David Choquehuanca, were deemed by MAS to have “excluded themselves” from their party by not attending a party congress. As a result, Morales was ratified as the party’s presidential candidate. Two months later, Bolivia’s Constitutional Court ruled that Morales would be barred from running for re-election.
Since then there has been a bitter split between the Arcistas and the Evistas, with Morales accusing Arce of orchestrating a “self-coup” in June this year to gain sympathy.
Arce claimed that the march Morales organized last week represented an attempt to orchestrate a coup.
