Bolivian Ministers of Economy, Labor and Productive Development announced on Monday their resignation from the interim government, with less than a month of general elections in the Andean country.
Economy Minister Oscar Ortiz said at a press conference that he had been forced to resign.
"They decided to appoint another person"
(the former Minister of Planning Branko Marinkovic, Editor's note), he declared, underlining differences with the government of interim president Jeanine Añez.
Read also: Bolivia: the interim president gives up being a candidate for the presidential election in October
The Minister of Labor, Oscar Mercado, for his part announced his resignation on Twitter.
“With the satisfaction of a duty accomplished, I submitted my resignation,”
he wrote.
The Minister of Productive Development, Abel Martinez, did the same, without the name of his replacement being known to date.
According to Oscar Ortiz, the disagreement revolves around a government decision to return shares in the public electricity company Elfec to a former private shareholder, the Cooperativa de Teléfonos de Cochabamba.
The company was nationalized by former leftist president Evo Morales in May 2010.
The Minister of the Interior, Arturo Murillo, himself admitted that
"indeed, the question of Elfec (had) generated a lot of friction"
within the government.
Evo Morales ruled on Twitter that the return of Elfec's shares
"is not only unconstitutional, but a serious attack on the electricity production and distribution chain".
Jeanine Añez was appointed interim president after the resignation of Evo Morales (2006-2019) in November 2019. A month earlier, the latter had proclaimed himself the winner of the presidential election for a fourth term, but the opposition had shouted to fraud.
After weeks of protests, the president resigned and fled Bolivia.
He is now a refugee in Argentina.
New general elections are scheduled for October 18.
Some 7.3 million Bolivians are called to the polls to elect the president, the vice-president and to renew the entire Parliament: 130 deputies and 36 senators.
