Coup bid in Bolivia fails as Arce mobilises people, arrests mastermind

Bolivian soldiers have withdrawn from positions outside government buildings where they had gathered with tanks in what President Luis Arce said was an attempted coup in the South American country.

The troops, under the command of army chief Juan Jose Zuniga, left the Plaza de Armas on Wednesday after several hours in which they tried to break down a door to the presidential palace, sparking international condemnation.

The soldiers later pulled back as supporters of Arce waved Bolivian flags and cheered in a central square. President Arce vowed to stand firm and named a new army commander who ordered troops to stand down.

Zuniga was arrested, local media reported, while prosecutors began probe against the ex-military general for coup attempt.

Earlier, in a video of Arce surrounded by ministers in the palace, the Bolivian leader said: "Here we are, firm in Casa Grande, to confront any coup attempt. We need the Bolivian people to organize.”

Arce confronted the general commander of the army — Juan Jose Zuniga, who appeared 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 said.

Morales slams military movement

Before entering the government building, Zuniga told journalists in the plaza: "Surely soon there will be a new Cabinet of ministers; our country, our state cannot go on like this." Zuniga said that "for now" he recognises Arce as commander in chief.

An hour later, Arce sacked Zuniga and announced new heads of the army, navy and air force amid the roar of supporters.

Video showed troops setting up blockades outside the government palace.

"I order all that are mobilised to return to their units, said the newly named army chief Jose Wilson Sanchez. "No one wants the images we’re seeing in the streets."

Soon after troops and armoured vehicles start pulling back from Bolivia's presidential palace.

The leadership of Bolivia's largest labour union condemned the action and declared an indefinite strike of social and labour organisations in La Paz in defence of the government.

Former president Evo Morales, in a message on X, denounced the movement of the military in the Murillo square outside the palace, calling it a coup "in the making."

Maria Nela Prada, minister of the presidency and a top Bolivian official, called it an "attempted coup d'etat."

"The people are on alert to defend democracy," she said to local television station Red Uno.

The incident was met with a wave of outrage by other regional leaders, including the Organization of American States; Gabriel Boric, the president of neighboring Chile; Honduras’s leader, and former Bolivian leaders.

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.