“political prisoner” for some, “putschistfor others: the trial of the former interim president of Bolivia, Jeanine Añez, in power between 2019 and 2020, opened in controversy on Thursday February 10 in La Paz.
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Incarcerated for eleven months and on hunger strike since Wednesday, Jeanine Añez, 54, is accused of having carried out a “Rebellionin November 2019 against the left-wing ex-president Evo Morales (2006-2019). Alongside eight former military officers, she is being prosecuted for “decisions contrary to the Constitution” and “dereliction of duty“. On November 12, 2019, in the midst of post-election unrest, Jeanine Añez, then second vice-president of the Senate, proclaimed herself interim president of Bolivia. A month earlier, Evo Morales had faced a wave of protest after his contested re-election for a fourth term. Dropped by the army and the police, he ended up resigning and going into exile.
Hunger-strike
The conservative senator had then taken the head of the country thanks to a power vacuum caused by the cascading resignations of Evo Morales and his constitutional successors: the vice-president, the president of the Senate and the president of the Chamber of deputies. “I assumed the presidency of Bolivia without asking for it, without seeking it and even less expecting it (…) with the sole mission of organizing elections and pacifying the country in crisis“Wrote this lawyer and former television presenter on Tuesday, in a letter where she presents herself as a”political prisoner“.
On Wednesday February 9, at the announcement of the start of her hunger strike, she said to herself “desperate to see a country without justice or law“. The ruling party, the Movement to Socialism (MAS) founded by Evo Morales, claims that Jeanine Añez violated constitutional steps and was part of a conspiracy. After a year of acting, Jeanine Añez had recognized the victory of Luis Arce, candidate of the MAS and dolphin of Evo Morales, in the presidential election of October 2020 and had given him power. For Jeanine Añez’s lawyer, Me Luis Guillén, who is calling for a face-to-face trial with 76 witnesses called to the bar, if the former president is accused of having violated the Constitution, “an ordinary court cannot decide what is constitutional“.
“Absurdity»
“This is a political trial”, estimates the political scientist Carlos Cordero of the University Mayor of San Andrés (UMSA). “It is a way of establishing political sanction for those who dared to be adversaries in times of crisis for the MAS“, he analyzes. Evo Morales, who returned to Bolivia after several months of exile thanks to the victory of Luis Arce, “holds her like a trophy to send a message of fear to all opposition leaders and all Bolivians who think differently“, denounced several months ago to AFP Caroline Ribera, the daughter of the former president. In a letter addressed in October to President Arce, Jeanine Añez had described as “inconceivable absurdity“his placement in detention because, according to her, the Constitutional Court had ratified the legality of his mandate in January 2020 before Parliament ratified it”constitutionality“.
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His arrest in March drew widespread international condemnation. Jeanine Añez has been selected for the European Parliament’s 2021 Sakharov Prize for the Defense of Freedom of Thought, ultimately awarded to Russian opponent Alexei Navalny. On Tuesday, 21 former presidents of Latin American countries asked the UN for a report on possible “abuse of power” against him. Jeanine Añez is also being prosecuted for “terrorism», «sedition” and “conspiracybut the investigation continues. She is also accused ofgenocideafter complaints from families of victims of the repression carried out by the police in November 2019 in the strongholds of Evo Morales.