International

Bolivian senator: Evo Morales fell due to betrayals, errors

01/12/2019

By CARLOS VALDEZ
November 26, 2019

Evo Morales fell from power in Bolivia due to betrayals by those he trusted and mistakes in his own party and because some people “got drunk with power,” the president of the country’s Senate, a member of the exiled leader’s political movement, said Tuesday.

Monica Eva Copa, a young legislator who rose from relative anonymity to the highest post currently held by a member of Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism, said the former president and the main actors in the leftist party “must answer for what happened in the party.”

“I think the former president was living with the enemy, but mistakes were also made, and one of them was that some people got drunk with power,” Copa said in an interview with The Associated Press, without saying which people she was referring to.

She said Morales used to meet every Monday with his military and police commanders, who turned on him amid widespread protests over Bolivia’s disputed Oct. 20 president election.

“That the armed forces asked him to resign is treason, that the police mutinied is treason. This surprised me,” she said.

These events reinforced the argument that Morales was toppled by a coup d’etat, Copa said, though she added in the end “history will tell us what it was.”

Opposition protests broke out after Morales claimed victory in the election that international observers invited in by the government said was flawed by numerous irregularities.

Prodded by police and the military, Morales resigned on Nov. 10 amid the turmoil and went into exile in Mexico, which set off protests by his own supporters. At least 33 people died in the 35 days of demonstrations by both sides.