Bolivian president and vice president resign

Our live coverage of the resignations in Bolivia has ended for the day. Read up on the latest news below.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez condemned the “coup” in Bolivia following the resignation of the country’s President Evo Morales and Vice President García Lineran today.

The Brazilian Foreign Ministry expressed its “profound concern with the grave irregularities” shown in the OAS report, according to a statement it released.

“Brazil considers it pertinent the call for new general elections as an answer to the legitimate protests from its people and recommendations from the OAS, after the finding of grave irregularities,” the statement said.

The Organization of American States (OAS) released a report that detailed a series of alleged irregularities in Bolivia’s election, including failures in the chain of custody for ballots, alteration and forgery of electoral material, redirection of data to unauthorized servers and data manipulation which all impacted the official vote count.

The US State Department has released a statement regarding the “quickly unfolding events” in Bolivia.

The statement follows the resignation of Bolivian President Evo Morales and Vice President García Linera this afternoon.

Read the statement below in its entirety:

Once former President Evo Morales presents his resignation letter to the congress, and given the vice president has resigned too, the president of the Senate, Adriana Salvatierra Arriaza, would be in charge of the country as per the Bolivian constitution. \

Arriaza is a 30-year-old Bolivian politician. She has been the president of the Senate in Bolivia since 2019.

It is unclear if Salvatierra will accept the position. Segments of the Bolivian opposition have said they do not want anyone from the government party taking over.

Article 169 of the Bolivian Constitution:

In recent hours, multiple government party officials in Bolivia have resigned.

Some of the resignations have been confirmed by ABI, Bolivia’s government press agency.

The resignations include:

In the same day that the Organization of American States presented the conclusions of an electoral audit citing severe irregularities in the presidential elections held on October 20th, president Morales, speaking on National TV, presented his resignation. Morales says that this decision “hurts deeply” but that it’s something he does “for the good of the country”.

Morales said he will be sending his resignation letter to Congress in the next hours.

According to the constitution, the vice-president takes over. However, vice-president Alvaro García Linera also resigned. In this case, and based on Article 169 of the Bolivian Constitution, the president of the Senate has to fill the position until new elections are held. It’s unclear if the president of the Senate will take over. 

Bolivian Vice President Alvaro García Linera announced his resignation minutes after President Evo Morales resigned today.

According to the Bolivian constitution, the president of the Senate takes over the country if the president and the vice president resign.

Bolivian President Evo Morales said at a press conference today that he is resigning “for the good of the country.”

The news of his resignation comes after Williams Kaliman, Commander of the Bolivian Armed Forces, asked the president to step down as a way to bring peace to the country.

Kaliman’s statement comes after the publication Sunday of the results of an electoral audit conducted by the Organization of American States citing several irregularities in the presidential elections held in late October.

Bolivia will hold new general elections after an international audit found last month’s election results could not be validated due to “serious irregularities.”