LA PAZ, 29 Jun: Bolivian President Luis Arce said Friday a former general planned to \u201ctake over\u201d the government and become president in a failed coup, and he denied that the Andean nation was in an economic crisis.
\nIn an interview with The Associated Press, the embattled leader denied once again that Wednesday\u2019s attack on the government palace was a \u201cself-coup\u201d designed to garner him political points.
\n\u201cI didn\u2019t escape. I stayed to defend democracy,\u201d Arce said.
\nArce washed his hands of claims by relatives of the 21 people detained by the government that they were innocent of attempting a coup and had been tricked by ex-Gen. Juan Jose Z\u00fa\u00f1iga.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a problem of those who were involved, it\u2019s not the government\u2019s problem,\u201d Arce told AP.
\nArce said also his government has been \u201cpolitically attacked\u201d by his one-time ally turned rival, former President Evo Morales, saying the infighting has snarled legislative activities and hamstrung his government confronting economic problems.
\nDespite that, he said, Bolivia\u2019s economy is growing and his administration is working to \u201cdiversify\u201d means of producing, investing in things like lithium and industrializing. Bolivia has the largest reserves of lithium \u2014 a metal known as \u201cwhite gold\u201d and considered essential in the green transition \u2014 in the world that has gone largely untapped, in part due to government policy.
\nArce said the government \u201chas taken action\u201d to address intermittent gasoline and dollar shortages and other hurdles ailing the South American nation\u2019s economy.
\n\u201cBolivia has an economy that\u2019s growing. An economy in crisis doesn\u2019t grow,\u201d he said.
\nHe said it was \u201ccompletely normal\u201d for Bolivians to run to stockpile food in supermarkets and make a run on ATMs upon seeing an emerging coup in the capital, instead of following his call to take to the streets in support of the government.
\nHe said Bolivians were traumatized by the political turmoil in 2019 that led Morales to resign as president and flee and also caused 37 deaths.
\n\u201cWhere there is a political situation, this rupture, a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat, of course people will be scared that there won\u2019t be food \u2026 so they\u2019ll go get money to go stock up,\u201d Arce said. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LA PAZ, 29 Jun: Bolivian President Luis Arce said Friday a former general planned to \u201ctake over\u201d the government and become president in a failed coup, and he denied that the Andean nation was in an economic crisis. In an interview with The Associated Press, the embattled leader denied once again that Wednesday\u2019s attack on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-243290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}