Arce said he came out “strengthened” after the coup attempt in Bolivia

Bolivian center-left President Luis Arce told Reuters on Friday that support on the streets had strengthened his government after a failed military coup just days ago and that he would continue to work until his last day, in one of his first interviews since the dramatic attack. The quiet economist became the center of the world’s attention on Wednesday, when rebel military units took over La Paz’s central square and rammed an armored vehicle into a presidential palace gate to allow soldiers to run inside. The support of the people in the streets and the international support we received has strengthened us to be here again and continue our work,” said Arce, a student of Karl Marx who is credited with driving Bolivia’s “economic miracles” in the early 2000s as economy minister under iconic leader Evo Morales. For us absolutely nothing has changed (…) We are going to continue working until the last day,” he said at the government headquarters in La Paz, the political capital of the highlands, where armed soldiers had stormed just a few meters away days earlier. On Friday, the Bolivian Justice determined the preventive detention of former Army commander Juan José Zúñiga, accused of terrorism and armed uprising against the State.

Original source in Spanish