Soldiers flee Bolivia's government palace after coup attempt fails and general taken into custody

Armored vehicles rammed the doors of Bolivia's government palace on Wednesday in an attempted coup, but President Luis Arce vowed to stand firm and appointed a new army commander who ordered troops to withdraw.

The soldiers retreated behind a line of military vehicles as hundreds of Arce supporters rushed into the square in front of the palace, waving Bolivian flags and cheering.

Arce, surrounded by ministers, waved to the crowd as they sang the national anthem. “Thank you to the Bolivian people,” he said. “Let democracy live on.”

Hours later, the Bolivian general believed to be behind the uprising, Juan José Zúñiga, was arrested after the attorney general opened an investigation. It was not immediately clear what the charges against him were.

Shortly before his arrest, however, Zúñiga claimed that Arce had asked him to storm the palace as a political move. “The president told me, 'The situation is very bad, very critical. It is necessary to prepare something to increase my popularity,'” Zúñiga told reporters.

Zúñiga said he asked Arce if he should “take out the armored vehicles?” and Arce replied, “Take them out.”

Wednesday's uprising followed months of tensions, with economic hardship and protests intensifying as two political titans – Arce and his former ally, left-wing former President Evo Morales – battled for control of the ruling party.

Yet the apparent effort to depose the sitting president seemed to lack any meaningful support, and even Arce's rivals closed ranks to defend democracy and reject the uprising.

The spectacle infuriated regional leaders and shocked Bolivians, no strangers to political unrest; in 2019, Morales was ousted as president after an earlier political crisis.

As the crisis unfolded on Wednesday, military vehicles poured into the square. Before entering the government building, Zúñiga, general commander of the army, told journalists: “There will definitely be a new cabinet of ministers soon; our country, our state cannot continue like this.” Zúñiga said he recognized Arce as commander-in-chief “for the time being.”

Zúñiga did not explicitly say he was leading a coup, but at the palace he said the military was trying to “restore democracy and free our political prisoners.”

Shortly afterwards, Arce confronted Zúñiga in the palace hallway, as seen on video on Bolivian television. “I am your captain and I order you to withdraw your soldiers, and I will not allow this insubordination,” Arce said.

Surrounded by ministers, he added: “Here we are, standing firm in Casa Grande, to face any attempted coup. We need the Bolivian people to organize.”

He added in a video message that he would “not allow further coup attempts to take the lives of Bolivians.”

Less than an hour later, amid cheers from supporters, Arce announced the new heads of the army, navy and air force, and thanked police and regional allies for their support of him. Arce said the troops who rebelled against him “stained the uniform of the army.”

“I order all those mobilized to return to their units,” newly appointed army chief José Wilson Sánchez said. “No one wants the images we see on the streets.”

Shortly afterwards, armored vehicles rushed out of the square, followed by hundreds of military fighters, as police in riot gear set up blockades outside the government palace.

The incident sparked a wave of outrage from other regional leaders, including the Organization of American States, Chilean President Gabriel Boric, the leader of Honduras and former Bolivian leaders.

Bolivia, a country of 12 million people, has faced mounting protests in recent months over the steep decline of its economy from one of the continent's fastest-growing countries two decades ago to one of the most crisis-hit.

The country has also seen a striking rift at the highest levels of the ruling party. Arce and his former ally, Morales, are fighting for the future of Bolivia's splintering Movement for Socialism, known by its Spanish acronym MAS, ahead of 2025 elections.

After Wednesday's chaos, local media reports showed Bolivians stocking up on food and other essentials at supermarkets, worried about what would happen next.

But to supporters outside the presidential palace, the country's vice president, David Choquehuanca, vowed: “Never again will the Bolivian people allow coup attempts.”