Two very completely different variations have emerged of Sunday’s incident when Morales says his automobile was hit by bullets.
The Bolivian authorities has disputed claims by former President Evo Morales that he was the sufferer of an assassination try by police on the weekend within the newest incident heightening tensions between the favored Indigenous chief and his former ally, President Luis Arce.
As a substitute, the federal government on Monday accused Morales of staging an try on his personal life, saying that the pictures fired at his automobile on Sunday got here after he tried to run a police checkpoint.
Morales claims the government attempted to assassinate him when bullets struck his automobile within the early hours of Sunday.
He mentioned his driver was wounded as assailants with lined faces shot at him whereas he was en path to a radio station for an interview within the metropolis of Cochabamba.
“The automobile by which I arrived has 14 bullet holes,” mentioned Morales, including: “This was deliberate. The thought was to kill Evo.”
Minister of Authorities Eduardo del Castillo responded throughout a information convention that an anti-drug trafficking unit was finishing up a typical freeway patrol on Sunday when Morales’s convoy shot at police and ran over an officer. He denied that the previous president was intentionally focused.
“Mr Morales, no one believes the theatre you’ve staged,” he instructed reporters.
Proof destroyed
Morales’s autos have been suspected of transporting medicine, in keeping with the federal government.
Del Castillo added that Morales had instructed his autos to be burned after the run-in, destroying any proof earlier than it could possibly be collected.
“If he had actually been sufferer of an assassination try, it will have been in his curiosity to go away them intact” in order that investigators might search them to gather proof, del Castillo mentioned.
The radio station that hosted the interview, Kawsachun Coca, launched a video that it mentioned was of the bullet-ridden pick-up truck that Morales had been in.
The windscreen had three bullet holes and the motive force had blood on his head.
Rising tensions
Sunday’s incident comes amid rising tensions, with Morales’s supporters blocking highways in central Bolivia and safety forces and police trying to clear them.
On Saturday, the federal government criticised the previous president for “destabilising” the nation with two weeks of street blockades which have disrupted meals and gas provide nationwide.
The federal government additionally claimed in an announcement that some teams allied with Morales have been armed and warned of potential violence, noting that 14 cops had been wounded whereas trying to interrupt up the blockades.
Not less than 44 protesters have been arrested on Friday when greater than 1,700 cops have been deployed to dismantle the roadblocks. Fourteen cops have been injured, in keeping with the federal government.
Morales, 65, who held workplace from 2006 to 2019, is the principle opponent of Arce, 61. They each belong to the identical Motion Towards Socialism (MAS) social gathering. However the two leaders have clashed over the last year, a part of an influence battle forward of the 2025 presidential elections.
The nation can also be grappling with dwindling fuel manufacturing, depleted international forex reserves and rising inflation, which is including stress on the governing social gathering and growing political infighting.
Morales can also be dealing with allegations of relationships with minors. He was formally summoned by regional prosecutors to testify within the case however didn’t seem, and now faces an arrest warrant.
Morales strongly denies the accusations.
