Why the Bolivia coup failed

Latin America has long been the traditional home of the military coup – or ‘golpe’ in Spanish – so the sight yesterday of soldiers rushing the presidential palace in La Paz, capital of Bolivia, and ramming its doors open with an armoured vehicle, may not have seemed surprising.

After hours of confusion, the leader of the coup, General Juan Jose Zuniga, was led away under arrest, with his attempt to ‘restructure democracy’ having clearly failed. Earlier, crowds had taken to the streets in response to presidential appeals to defend democracy and oppose the coup.

The abortive coup attempt was aimed at toppling Bolivia’s left-wing president, Luis Arce. It follows years of increasingly bitter confrontation between the Bolivian masses who elected Arce, and the army and managerial elite who resent his socialist policies.

Bolivia, a landlocked state in the centre of the continent, has had more than its share of coups and military dictatorships since the Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara was killed there trying to ignite a pan-American guerilla uprising in 1967.