On Thursday, June 26, troops occupied Plaza Murillo in La Paz, where the Bolivian government headquarters is located. Commander Juan José Zúñiga, head of the army, invaded the plaza with a hundred soldiers and a group of armored vehicles, breaking down the door of the Palacio Quemado, where President Luis Arce and his ministers tried to resist by blocking the entrances with furniture.

Although Zúñiga’s would-be coup soon ended in defeat, it meant that the threat of military rebellions has returned to Latin America only a year and a half after Jair Bolsonaro’s followers attempted to seize power by force in Brazil. This situation is not new in Bolivia, the country that has experienced the largest number of coups since 1945.

The last one was in 2019, when president Evo Morales was ousted by a civic-military insurrection and forced into exile after thirteen years of relative political stability under the governments of the Movement for Socialism (MAS). It is necessary to go back to that moment to understand what happened on June 26 and what effects it may have for the Bolivian left, which remains in power but is acutely divided and more fragile than at any time since Morales first became president.