The former president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, believes that current President Luis Arce and his government were behind an alleged gun attack on his vehicle. In a dramatic video posted on Sunday, Morales called the alleged assassination attempt a “dark plot to destroy” him and an “ambush.” He was en route to a radio station to record his weekend program when his car was intercepted and “four hooded officers dressed in black with weapons in their hands, got out and began to shoot.” The radio station later released a video showing three bullet holes on the car’s windshield and the driver wounded with a bloody head.
Morales explains in his statement that “they shot at the wheels, at the tires, the car could not move forward,’ and the attack consisted of “three shots in a burst… there were at least seven, eight, nine shots” and they had found as many as 20 bullets. He credits the survival of him and his team to their decision to crouch down in their seats, as this had likely “saved their lives.” Morales was not injured but calls the attack and the supposed role of the government in it a “failure” adding to the “political defeat of a government that has lost legitimacy in the eyes of the Bolivian people.”
However, Arce denies all of these claims. According to Reuters, Bolivia’s leaders responded to the video on Monday, calling his assumptions “theater” and asserting that they had not led an attack of any sort on Morales. CNN reported that Arce condemned political violence in a statement on X (formerly known as Twitter). Arce added that there would be an “immediate and thorough investigation” into the alleged attack, led by Bolivia’s Deputy Security Minister Robert Rios. In Rios’s statement, he raised the possibility of the incident being a “self-attack” set up by Morales and denied the existence of any police operation against the former President.
The government instead claimed that the former president and his convoy had attacked anti-narcotics special police who were on patrol. CNN reports that Eduardo Dell Castillo Del Carpio, the Bolivian Minister of Government, informed the public that law enforcement officers were present at the same checkpoint in order to conduct an anti-drug tracking operation. Morales and his convoy approached and were told by the officers to slow down, but the passengers sped up and fired their weapons at the officers. Morales responded to these allegations as “false,” saying that Castillo Del Carpio was “lying” because no one in his convoy had been carrying “any kind of weapon.”
Morales was Bolivia’s first indigenous president who led the country for over a decade—CNN notes that he had to resign after fourteen years due to increasing accusations of electoral fraud. Additionally, the Bolivian government is currently investigating Morales over allegations of human trafficking. He denies both of these claims and publicly states that he was forced out of office in a coup. Morales fled to Mexico where he was granted political asylum, then moved to Argentina, and later returned to his home of Chapare, Bolivia in 2020. He has clashed with Arce since his return as they both fight for elected office in 2025. Arce is his former protege and ally, as he was the economy minister under Morales. Reuters explained that this public disagreement is a sign of dangerous levels of tension within the ruling party, which has been experiencing ongoing conflict due to the split between Morales and Arce.
The President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, is one of many Latin American leaders who believe that this attack and the conflict around it could represent a threat to democratic government. Petro stated that “Fascism is on the rise throughout Latin America. It is no longer just about legal elimination. Now they are moving on to the same old thing: the physical elimination of those who think differently.” It’s crucial to focus on the broader implications of this incident for Bolivian politics as well as the future of democracy in Latin America.
Written by Sirisha Kunamneni
