BarcelonaThe former president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, denounced this Sunday that unknown persons shot the vehicle he was traveling in, in a shooting that injured his driver. As he was driving to the station where he usually hosts a weekend show, attackers in two vehicles fired 14 shots into his car. Morales has accused the government of the assassination attempt, in a gesture that shows the degradation of political relations between him and his former ally and current president, Luis Arce.
The former Andean president declared on the radio that the chase took place at 6:25 a.m. (local time) during a journey between the towns of Villa Tunari and Lauca ÑÑ, in the Tropic of Cochabamba, when a bullet hit him “centimeters” of the head. “I don’t know if they were soldiers or police,” he said. According to the former president’s version, when he saw that two or three vans were following his car, the driver “swerved”, but the pursuit did not stop. “Here I realized it was an operation,” he said, and added: “Luckily, we survived.”
The incident was recorded in a video, filmed by a woman who was in the car and which Morales made public on Facebook. It shows the former president sitting in the front passenger seat, two bullet holes in the windshield and the driver of the vehicle apparently injured. “Get hold of yourself, bend down, hold on!”, the two occupants of the car said to Morales, while Morales spoke on the phone trying to warn about what was happening.
The video cuts out for a moment, and then Morales explains that he has already had to change vehicles once because the lamp of the previous one was damaged due to a shot. The occupants then notice that the driver is bleeding from the head, as he insistently honks his horn to overtake a spot on the road with heavy traffic. Afterwards, the Bolivian leader opens the window to alert the pedestrians who shot them and asks them to clear the way for the men who are chasing them.
Once for the confrontations
Morales has blamed the government of Luis Arce for the incident, saying that “today has been fulfilled” the plan to try to kill him, after attempts to destroy him politically and prosecute him in court failed. But the executive denies the accusations. The Deputy Minister of Security, Roberto Rios, assured in a press conference that the police had not carried out any operation against the former president, and that they would investigate the facts. “As the authorities in charge of the security of the State, we are obliged to investigate any complaint, whether true or false,” said Rios.
The incident comes two weeks after Morales’ supporters blocked roads to demand the government drop the charges against the former president, in what they call political persecution. On Saturday, the executive denounced that the protests led by Morales “seek to disrupt the democratic order” and “destabilize” the country, as the blockade of roads has hampered the supply of food and fuel. Some groups supporting Morales injured 14 policemen who were trying to end the blockades, according to a government statement.
Evo Morales and Luis Arce, his former economy minister, are part of the same political party, Movimiento al Socialismo, but their relationship has increasingly eroded over the past year in a power struggle ahead of elections of 2025.
But the discontent of the population is also due to the decrease in gas production, the depletion of foreign exchange reserves and the increase in inflation, which increases the pressure on the government.
