A court in La Paz has sentenced former Bolivian interim president Jeanine Áñez to 10 years in prison. Áñez had to serve the sentence for unconstitutional decisions and breaches of duty when she took over the interim presidency in November 2019 in Miraflores prison in La Paz, the judge said when reading the verdict on Friday (local time). “I was denied everything and treated worse than anyone, but I was, am and will be the constitutional president who took over after the coward fled,” Áñez previously wrote on Twitter.
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the essentials in brief
- Áñez became interim president after left-wing leader Evo Morales resigned after the October 2019 election under pressure from the military.
He was accused of voter fraud. Morales fled abroad, his supporters spoke of a putsch. 35 people died in protests as a result of the political turmoil. When the candidate of the left-wing party MAS, Luis Arce, won a presidential election in October 2020, which had been postponed several times, Morales was able to return home.
A former MAS MP went to court against the “coup d’etat”. The arch-conservative Añez and former ministers of her interim government were arrested in March 2021 and taken into custody. Añez accused the MAS of political persecution because of her arrest. Human rights activists criticize the fact that the judiciary in Bolivia is repeatedly used by various parties to pursue political goals and opponents.
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