(CNN Spanish) - The day Evo Morales arrived in Mexico after the government of that country granted him asylum, in Bolivia he assumed an interim president. Although the Legislative Assembly of Bolivia could not meet to appoint new authorities due to lack of quorum, legislator Jeanine Áñez spoke in Congress and said she assumes the functions of president. Until the moment of resignation, Áñez was the second vice president of the Senate.
Thus, a day of changes was experienced for Bolivia after several weeks of protest, a questioned election and with a panorama still with uncertainty for the next elections.
This is how Jeanine Áñez arrived at the interim presidency
Before the resignations of Evo Morales, Vice President García Linera, Senate President Adriana Salvatierra Arriaza and First Vice President Rubén Medinaceli Ortiz, Áñez was the next link in the presidential succession.
Áñez assumes protection in article 169 of the constitution of Bolivia. This article establishes the order of succession in the case of "permanent impediment or absence of the president of the State" and determines that in such situation it would be up to the vice president to assume the Presidency. But there was no vice president in Bolivia either, so in the absence of the latter, the president of the Senate, who also resigned, should assume. He would then be followed by the president of the Chamber of Deputies, whose head also resigned.
So following that logic - and in the absence of all the previous charges - you reach Áñez.
The Bolivian Congress tried to meet on Tuesday to appoint Áñez as president of the Senate and thus be able to take office as interim president. After closing the session without obtaining results, the senator went to another place where she assumed the presidency of the country.
Áñez, of the Democratic Unity Party, declared herself president despite the lack of quorum.
Áñez promised to "pacify Bolivia".
The interim president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, entered the presidential palace holding the Bible up. It was a very symbolic gesture that drew the attention of many because of the fact that the Constitution clearly states in its fourth article that the State is independent of religion. That is, a secular state.
Áñez was followed by people who sent slogans of "yes it could" and "Long live our president", Añez thanked the Police and Armed Forces for their work.
However, governance is being questioned. The session of the Chamber of Deputies in which Morales's resignation was to be discussed and the appointment of the substitute was suspended due to lack of quorum. The deputies of the MAS, party of Morales, who are a majority in both houses, did not participate in the process.
However, the Plenipotentiary Constitutional Court of Bolivia on Tuesday said in a statement that the application of constitutional succession is "in accordance with the text and meaning of the constitution."
The Constitutional Court that recognizes the presidential succession of Jeanine Áñez is the same that enabled Evo Morales's candidacies for the presidency.
For his part, the opposition leader Luis Fernando Camacho said that what all Bolivians wanted was to have a constitutional president, that the Bible return to the palace, but above all that peace returns to the country. His statements came after Jeanine Áñez declared herself interim president of Bolivia. Camacho says that today at midnight the civic strike in Santa Cruz rises.
The Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, spoke on Tuesday about the crisis in Bolivia. “The shame is not from the OAS that discovers electoral fraud, it is from those who committed it,” said Almagro.
Áñez: Evo Morales is a scammer of democracy
In the first interview as interim president, Áñez exclusively told CNN Conclusions in Spanish that “society's demand was to pacify Bolivia. We could not be indifferent to the situation that Evo Morales left us. ”
Añez said Morales did not expect that "the fraud of October 20 would be so blatant."
Áñez said in an interview with Fernando del Rincón that the first thing he will do is choose a new Electoral Court and then call presidential elections. The president said that in Bolivia there were two coups and explained why he could assume the presidency of the country.
“This will be a transition government that will choose probos members for the TSE. After electing the TSE, we will choose the new president of Bolivia in elections, ”he said.
"Evo Morales is a scammer of democracy," he said.
Áñez also said: "Let Evo Morales say that there was a coup d'etat is as false as the results of the elections."
What follows for Áñez and Bolivia
Among the main tasks of the interim president is the formation of her Executive. And, in addition, the call for new elections as soon as possible. But for that you will first have to get the legislative assembly to name the members of the Supreme Electoral Court.
On Tuesday, the justice of Bolivia issued preventive detention for three of the members of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. One of them is its former president María Eugenia Choque, who was charged with eleven crimes, including electoral and public corruption allegedly committed in the context of the October 20 elections.
The reaction of Evo Morales
Evo Morales learned about this imbalance from Mexico where he arrived on Tuesday after "a journey through different spaces and political decisions," according to Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard.
In his Twitter account he wrote that the assumption of Áñez consumes "the most artful and disastrous blow in history."
https://twitter.com/evoespueblo/status/119440130065139712
“A coupist right-wing senator calls herself president of the Senate and then interim president of Bolivia without a legislative quorum, surrounded by a group of accomplices and backed by the armed forces and the police that repress the people,” Morales tweeted, who resigned Sunday amid accusations of electoral fraud following the OAS report.
Morales calls what happened a “self-proclamation” that, in his opinion, violates articles 161, 169 and 410 of the Constitution. Bolivia, he says, suffers an assault on the power of the people.
With information from Juan Pablo Varsky, Fernando del Rincón, Kay Guerrero, Luis Rodríguez, Jeina Negrón, Gustavo Valdés, Juliana González and Gremaud Angee.