Former Bolivian President Evo Morales called on his supporters last week to participate in a “March to Save Bolivia.”
The march reportedly stretched 190 kilometres (118 miles), from the village of Caracollo to the capital La Paz. It began peacefully on Tuesday morning.
However, hours later, the nearly 10,000 pro-Morales protesters were faced with hundreds of counter-protesters wielding tear gas bombs, stones, and firecrackers. An effigy of Morales was also set alight.
The counter-protesters were supporters of the incumbent President Luis Arce.
Calls of “Evo, Bolivia wants you back,” were heard from pro-Morales protesters (Evistas) while pro-Arce protesters (Arcistas) reportedly shouted “Evo, you traitor, your time has passed.”
Associated Press reporters also saw pro-Morales protesters chasing pro-Arce activists, beating them with sticks, shoving them to the floor, and kicking them.
Ombudsman Pedro Callisaya said that there had also been attacks on assembly members and journalists who had been reporting on the protests, according to La Razón. He described this violence as “generating an atmosphere of anxiety and insecurity, not only among 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 the economy minister under Morales, and, when Morales fled Bolivia in 2019 following allegations of vote rigging, he specifically selected Arce to be the presidential candidate for MAS in the 2020 general elections.
Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, spent a year in exile. He was accused by the right-wing interim government of sedition, terrorism, and statutory rape, and a warrant was issued for his arrest, though was later rescinded.
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 be running for the 2025 elections.
Then, in October 2023, President Arce and his Vice President, David Choquehuanca, were deemed by MAS to have “expelled themselves” from their own party by failing to attend a party congress. Morales was consequently ratified as the party’s presidential candidate. Two months later, the Bolivian Constitutional Court ruled that Morales would be prohibited from running for reelection.
There has since been a stark split between Arcistas and Evistas, with Morales accusing Arce of orchestrating a “self-coup” in June of this year to gain sympathy.
Arce claimed that the march which Morales organized last week represented an attempt to orchestrate a coup.
