Bogota, Nov. 18, (dpa/GNA) – About a year after violent protests claimed more than 30 lives in Bolivia, new President Luis Arce has replaced the command of the country’s police and armed forces, local media reported.
Security forces need to regain “the trust” of the population, Arce was quoted as saying.
Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president who governed the Andean country for 13 years, went into exile under pressure from the military following fraud allegations in the elections in October last year.
The resignation and departure of the leftist president allowed right-wing senator Jeanine Anez to take power as interim president in what critics saw as a coup.
Post-election clashes, which pitted Morales’ supporters against his opponents and police, claimed more than 30 lives.
MAS member Arce won the rerun of the elections on October 18 and was sworn in on November 8.
“Today we have the great challenge of … giving back to the armed forces their place in society, which unfortunately was used mistakenly,” daily Pagina Siete quoted the president as saying on Monday.
Arce also called on police to always defend the elected government and to uproot corruption from its ranks, newspaper El Deber reported.
Morales returned from exile in Argentina shortly after Arce took office.
GNA