LA PAZ – Bolivian law enforcement officials on Wednesday arrested former President Luis Arce as part of a corruption investigation, opening an uncertain chapter in the country's politics a month after the inauguration of conservative President Rodrigo Paz ended 20 years of socialist rule.
A senior official in Paz's government, Marco Antonio Oviedo, told reporters that Ar ce had been arrested on charges of breach of duty and financial misconduct related to the alleged embezzlement of public funds during his stint as economy minister in the government of his erstwhile ally and predecessor, former leader Evo Morales.
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A special police force dedicated to fighting corruption confirmed to The Associated Press that Arce was in custody at the unit's headquarters in Bolivia's capital of La Paz.
Promise to fight corruption
Oviedo described Arce's arrest as proof of the new government's commitment to fighting graft at the highest levels in fulfillment of its flagship campaign promise. Underlining the country's polarization, Arce's allies said his arrest was unjustified and smacked of political persecution.
“It is the decision of this government to fight corruption, and we will arrest all those responsible for this massive embezzlement,” Oviedo said, accusing Arce and other officials of diverting an estimated $700 million from a state-run fund dedicated to supporting the Indigenous people and peasant farmers who formed the backbone of Morales' Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party.
“Arce was identified as the main person responsible for this massive economic damage,” he added.
Bolivia's attorney general, Roger Mariaca Montenegro, told local media that Arce had invoked his right to remain silent during police questioning. He said Arce would remain in police custody overnight before being brought before a judge to determine whether he will remain detained pending trial. The charges against Arce carry a maximum sentence of 4-6 years in prison.
Allies insist Arce is innocent
Arce's key ally and former government minister, Maria Nela Prada, insisted on the ex-president's innocence and denounced the corruption scandal as a case of political persecution. Although Oviedo spoke of an arrest warrant, she said Arce was not notified of the case before he was bundled into a minivan with tinted windows in an upscale La Paz neighborhood on Wednesday and brought in for interrogation.
“This is a total abuse of power,” Prada said, banging furiously on the doors of the police headquarters where Arce was being held.
Oviedo denied that politics played a role, portraying the case against Arce as the result an anti-corruption drive central to the Paz government's agenda.
Paz swept to victory on a wave of popular outrage over Bolivia’s worst economic crisis in four decades that voters widely blamed on economic mismanagement under MAS party rule. Paz's straight-talking vice president, Edman Lara, promoted his past as a police captain fired from the force after denouncing corruption on social media to mobilize a massive following.
Courts not neutral arbiters
Observers long have noted that Bolivia's courts, far from being a neutral arbiter, have become a prize to control for both the left and the right. Judicial decisions in the past several years have reflected the country's volatile and deeply polarized politics.
Morales, who became the first Indigenous president in 2006 and guided Bolivia through an era of economic growth and shrinking inequality before his 2019 ouster, was accused of stacking the constitutional court and bending the laws to stay in power.
When he resigned in the wake of mass protests over his disputed reelection to a fourth term, the right-wing interim government that took over swiftly issued arrest warrants for Morales and his officials, accusing Morales of terrorism and Arce of corruption, among other charges.
Then Arce won the 2020 elections and went on to pursue his own political rivals.
Former interim president Jeanine Añez was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of sedition and other right-wing opposition figures landed in jail. Judges even went after Morales, Arce's mentor-turned-rival, who remains hunkered down in Bolivia’s remote tropics evading an arrest warrant related to statutory rape.
With the pendulum now swinging back to the right, Añez and her allies have been released from prison pending further trial.
Pendulum swings to right
Celebrating Arce's arrest on social media, Lara warned in a video that Arce was just the first to fall victim to the Paz government's campaign against former officials that he accused of plundering the country.
“Those who have stolen from this country will return every last cent,” Lara said, ending his message by wishing “death to the corrupt.”
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DeBre reported from Santiago, Chile