Following violent coup, right-wing Senator Jeanine Anez proclaims herself president of Bolivia
Two days after a violent coup against Bolivian President Evo Morales, Senator Jeanine Áñez proclaimed herself president of the crisis-wracked South American nation.
Áñez, 52, the third-ranking member of the Bolivian Senate, took office amid an irregular meeting of the upper house - which lacked the quorum necessary to call a session.
Senators belonging to Morales' Movement To Socialism (MAS), which until the coup held 25 of the 36 seats, did not attend - both to deny a quorum as well as out of fear for their safety.
Tanks have plied the streets of La Paz and other cities, homes of Morales officials have burned, and hundreds have been injured - including numerous disappearances and reports of torture - since Sunday's coup.
Morales denounced Áñez as "a pro-coup right-wing senator who calls herself president of the senate and then interim president of Bolivia without a legislative quorum, surrounded by a group of accomplices and coddled by the armed forces and the police that repress the people."
Morales, 60, who sought to transform Bolivia since 2006 as its first indigenous president, landed in Mexico this afternoon pledging to keep up his political fight after resigning in the wake of mass protests over the disputed October 20 election.
He called recent events in his country of 11 million as "the most artful and disastrous coup in history."
At: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/jeanine-anez-declares-bolivia-interim-president-191112233635201.html
Jeanine Áñez, right-wing senator self-proclaimed as Bolivia's president two days after a violent coup against President Evo Morales left the country without a head of state.
The new regime's true strongman, however, is said to be Luis "Macho" Camacho - the son of a natural gas baron with links to the country's violent white supremacist movement.
Camacho met with Ivanka Trump during her visit to neighboring Argentina in September.
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