Tensions remain high in the South American country as an economic crisis converges with frustration over elections.At least four people have been killed in antigovernment demonstrations in Bolivia, where supporters of former President Evo Morales have clashed with state forces as tensions rise ahead of upcoming elections.
On Thursday, Justice Minister Cesar Siles identified the four people killed as first responders, and a state news agency reported that three were police officers and one was a firefighter.
“There are already four officers who have lost their lives,” Siles told reporters in La Paz, saying some had been shot.
This week’s protests have largely centred on frustrations over Bolivia’s floundering economy and Morales’s inability to run in the presidential election on August 17.
The protests are most active in rural areas, where support for Morales is most concentrated. A trade union organiser who served as president from 2006 to 2019, Morales is considered Bolivia’s first Indigenous leader and a champion for eliminating poverty.
But his three terms as president were marred by accusations of increasingly authoritarian tendencies. In 2016, voters turned down a constitutional amendment that would have allowed Morales to run for a fourth consecutive term, but Morales then petitioned the courts to allow him to run anyway. Advertisement
He was successful, but his candidacy in the 2019 presidential race — and accusations of fraud — sparked a political crisis that saw him temporarily flee the country.
In recent years, however, Bolivian courts …
