Armoured vehicles broke through the gates of the government palace in Bolivia on Wednesday in an attempted coup against President Luis Arce.

The coup attempt failed when Arce’s supporters and trade unions took to the streets against the coup and Arce refused to surrender.

Supporters of the president took to the streets with Bolivian flags and the troops withdrew from the presidential palace. At the same time, Arce appointed a new army commander who ordered the troops to withdraw.

The Bolivian leader said: ‘Here we are, standing firm in Casa Grande to resist any coup attempt. We need the organisation of the Bolivian people,” said the Bolivian leader.

In a video broadcast on Bolivian television, Arce confronted Juan José Zúñiga, the army commander believed to be leading the rebellion, in the corridor of the palace. “I am your leader and I order you to withdraw your troops and I will not tolerate this disobedience,” Arce is heard saying.

Putschist Zúñiga’s hesitation leads to defeat

“Of course there will soon be a new council of ministers, our country, our state cannot continue like this,” Zúñiga told reporters in the square before entering the government building, but said that “for the time being” he recognised Arce as commander-in-chief.

Zúñiga did not explicitly say he was leading a coup, but said at the palace that the military was trying to “restore democracy and free political prisoners”.

Arce, for his part, called for “respect for democracy” in a message posted on his X account. “We cannot allow coup attempts to take the lives of Bolivians again,” Arce said from inside the palace, surrounded by government officials, in a video message sent to news agencies.

An hour later, to cheers from supporters, Arce announced the new heads of the army, navy and air force. The video showed soldiers setting up barricades outside the government palace.

“I order all those who are mobilised to return to their units. No one wants the images we see on the streets,” said newly appointed army commander José Wilson Sánchez.

Putschist general accuses Arce of ‘orchestrating coup’

Zúñiga was taken into custody after the Bolivian Attorney General’s Office issued an arrest warrant for General Zúñiga.

At the time of his arrest, the officer accused Luis Arce of orchestrating a coup attempt to “increase his popularity”.

At the time of his arrest, Zúñiga said: “I met with the president on Sunday at the La Salle school, and the president told me: ‘The situation is terrible, this week is going to be critical. So I must prepare something to increase my popularity,'” Zúñiga is reported to have said.

The general went on to describe his alleged conversation with Arce, claiming that when he asked Arce “if they should remove the armoured vehicles”, Arce replied in the affirmative. According to Zúñiga, military vehicles were mobilised that night and preparations began.

Before his arrest, Zúñiga claimed that this was a “self-coup”.

Local media reported that the general would be charged with terrorism and armed rebellion against the security and sovereignty of the state.

The authorities later announced the arrest of a second person implicated in Wednesday’s events, Juan Arnez Salvador, former commander of the Bolivian navy.

The US is ‘closely monitoring the situation’

Following the coup attempt, Latin American and Caribbean countries such as Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, Chile and Honduras also expressed their support for Arce.

The United States, on the other hand, said only that it was “closely monitoring the situation”.

Earlier this week, Bolivian government sources warned that a US-backed coup was being prepared.

Morales-Arce rivalry in the ruling MAS party?

In addition to economic problems, Bolivia has been rocked for some time by rifts at the highest levels of the ruling party.

Arce and his former ally, former president Evo Morales, are fighting over the future of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) ahead of elections in 2025.

Zuniga was ousted on Monday after appearing on television and saying he would arrest Morales if he ran again next year.

Laws limiting presidential terms do not allow Morales to run again.

In several public statements, Arce had claimed that he was the target of a “soft coup” aimed at “shortening his term” and that Morales’ supporters were behind it.

The former president, for his part, has said that Arce is trying to undermine his desire to run for president again by taking over the leadership of the MAS.

Bolivia is also facing a severe economic crisis due to fuel and foreign currency shortages. Arce blamed Morales for unions taking to the streets in response.

As police crackdowns in the US target pro-Palestinian student protests on campus, university administrators are cutting ties with pro-Palestinian faculty members.

Since the beginning of the Israeli invasion of Gaza, academics in politics, sociology, Japanese literature, public health, Latin American and Caribbean studies, Middle Eastern and African studies, mathematics, education and many other fields have been fired or suspended for their pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli rhetoric.

According to The Intercept, there is no official data on the number of academics who have lost their jobs or been suspended for supporting Palestine, largely because higher education in the country is fragmented, often privatised and based on short-term contracts.

In general, professors who have lost their jobs and been suspended over Palestine have brought these allegations to public attention by making them themselves. A large number of academics across the country are likely to be investigated, and many will see their contracts quietly expire without renewal.

The Intercept spoke to more than ten professors, both adjunct and tenured, whose jobs have been threatened because of their pro-Palestinian views. All of the professors the publication spoke to have been investigated at some point since 7 October, and some of the investigations have been closed with no evidence of wrongdoing.

Several have received varying degrees of suspension, and four of the professors have lost their jobs or face losing them next week when the semester ends without renewal of their contracts.

“A large number of our investigations, even lawsuits, involve due process violations related to non-reappointment, dismissal, tenure, and the like,” said Anita Levy, senior programme officer for the American Association of University Professors.

Levy said the non-profit organisation, which advocates for faculty rights and academic freedom, has filed five cases in recent months related to pro-Palestinian speech.

“It is unusual to file five or six cases in a two-month period when social media posts about a current event, such as the war in Gaza, are suspended,” Levy said. None of the cases we filed were related to pro-Israel rhetoric. They were all in support of the Palestinian cause,” he said.

Levy said the US was at the beginning of a “new McCarthyism”, noting that what had happened “could be the tip of the iceberg”.

US President Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump are running neck-and-neck in the November presidential election, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Forty per cent of registered voters in the eight-day survey, which ended on Tuesday, said they would vote for Democrat Biden if the election were held today, while the same proportion chose former US president Trump. This is little changed from Biden’s 1-point lead in the Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted on 29-30 April.

According to the poll, which has a margin of error of about 2 percentage points among registered voters, many voters remain undecided nearly six months before the November 5 election.

Twenty per cent of registered voters surveyed said they had not chosen a candidate, were leaning towards third party options or might not vote at all.

Thirteen per cent said they would vote for Robert Kennedy Jr, who entered the race as an independent, if he appeared on the ballot with Trump and Biden. In the previous poll, conducted in April, Kennedy had 8% support.

While the ongoing lawsuits against him challenge Trump, Biden faces difficulties because of his age and his stance on the Gaza war.

When respondents were not given the option of voting for a third candidate or saying they were not sure who they would vote for, both candidates were tied at 46 per cent among registered voters; 8 per cent of respondents declined to answer the question.

Among registered voters who say they are “absolutely certain” they will vote in November, Biden leads by a slim 3-point margin.

In the 2020 presidential election, when Biden defeated Trump, only two-thirds of voters went to the polls.