Military coup attempt in Bolivia fails, president urges people to mobilize against democracy threat

Armoured vehicles rammed the doors of Bolivia's government palace Wednesday in an apparent coup attempt, but Bolivian President Luis Arce vowed to stand firm and named a new army commander who ordered troops to stand down. 

Soon the soldiers pulled back, along with a line of military vehicles, as hundreds of Arce's supporters rushed the square outside the palace, waving Bolivian flags, singing the national anthem and cheering.

Arce, surrounded by ministers, waved at the crowd. "Thank you to the Bolivian people," he said. "Let democracy live on."

Hours later, the Bolivian general who appeared to be behind the rebellion, Juan José Zúñiga, was arrested after the attorney general opened an investigation. It wasn't immediately clear what the charges against him were.

But in a twist, Zúñiga claimed before his arrest that Arce himself told the general to storm the palace in a political move.

"The president told me, 'The situation is very screwed up, very critical. It is necessary to prepare something to raise my popularity,'" Zúñiga told reporters.

Zúñiga said he asked Arce if he should "take out the armoured vehicles?" and that Arce replied, "Take them out."

Justice Minister Iván Lima denied Zúñiga's claims, saying the general was lying and trying to justify his own actions for which he will face justice.

Prosecutors will seek the maximum sentence of 15 to 20 years in prison for Zúñiga, Lima said via the social media platform X, "for having attacked democracy and the Constitution."

Arce has not commented on Zúñiga's claims, and the Ministry of the Presidency did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment. But Arce did confront Zúñiga during the coup attempt 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 said.

Arce swore in new military leaders amid the attempted coup, including Zúñiga's position. New army chief José Wilson Sánchez ordered all mobilized troops to return to their barracks. "No one wants the images we're seeing in the streets," he said.Prior to entering the government building, Zúñiga told reporters in the square that there will be a "new cabinet of ministers."

"Surely things will change, but our country cannot continue like this any longer," he told a local TV station.

Zúñiga did not explicitly say he's leading a coup, but in the palace, with bangs echoing behind him, he said the army was trying to "restore democracy and free our political prisoners."