[tptacek]

Again: the only reason Anez, who occupied the same spot in the Bolivian line of succession that Anthony Blinken does in ours, assumed power was that 3 of Morales supporters higher in the order than her resigned. That's an awfully elaborate coup design!

[thiagoharry]

I wonder why they resigned... Just because they were being attacked, their houses burned, with family members being kidnapped, all while they were prevented from entering government buildings....

[tptacek]

Linera left with Morales. The President of the House apparently left to Argentina. but Salvatierra didn't flee? Resigned of her own accord.

And, again: Anez called prompt elections and peacefully handed power back to MAS less than a year later. She had every opportunity to avoid that: the election took place during the start of the COVID pandemic.

Anez is not good. I don't dispute MAS appears to be the better steward of Bolivia. But Morales had plenty of time to set up a constitutional succession and build a long-term movement (note that Morales and Arce hate each other, and there are rumors that the coup has more to do with that relationship than anything else). Instead, he tried to secure an unprecedented 4th term, after his unprecedented 3rd term, after his unprecedented 2nd term. Is it any wonder that there was chaos in 2019? If Morales had just annointed a successor, MAS would have won in a walk.

[thiagoharry]

> Linera left with Morales. The President of the House apparently left to Argentina. but Salvatierra didn't flee? Resigned of her own accord.

Salvatierra explicitly tells in interviews that one of the reasons for her resignation was the threat of the coup violence. That in the moment of her resignation there were already outside her house a violent mob ready to attack if she did not resign. In a context where other MAS members already had their houses attacked, their relatives kidnapped and tortured.

> And, again: Anez called prompt elections and peacefully handed power back to MAS less than a year later. She had every opportunity to avoid that: the election took place during the start of the COVID pandemic.

She tried to avoid the elections during pandemic, but was forced to retreat the proposal.And as I said, all recent soft coups in Latin America involve making elections some time later, just after ensuring that the overthrown group would not win (which failed in Bolivia because of MAS popular support).

Yes, Morales should have annointed a successor. But even his extra terms were more democratic than what the opposition did in response. And it is a little naive thinking that this would have prevented a coup or some other reaction if the parties that Morales defeated in the elections still were defeated by his successor.

[tptacek]

What the opposition did in response was appoint, through the documented constitutional line of succession, an interim president who immediately called elections and peacefully transferred power to their opposition, which promptly imprisoned them. I understand pretty well the competing narratives about 2019, but it is very difficult for me to get past that basic fact pattern.