Bolivian interim president Initiates major changes

By Sierra Juarez

PUERTO ESCONDIDO, Mexico (AA) - The conservative interim government of Bolivia announced Friday it will cut diplomatic relations with Venezuela, according to several media reports.

Venezuelan diplomats will have to leave the country for allegedly interfering with Bolivia’s internal affairs.

“They will be given a deadline to leave the country for having been involved in internal affairs of the state,” Bolivian Chancellor Karen Longaric said in a news conference, according to media outlets.

Longaric said she is talking specifically about Venezuelan diplomats with ties to President Nicholas Maduro’s government.

Bolivian interim president Jeanine Anez declared Thursday that opposition leader Juan Guaido was the rightful president of Venezuela, not Maduro.

The Venezuelan government has been in turmoil since January regarding presidential elections.

There are accusations the elections were rigged and Maduro should not be president for a second term. Shortly after the accusations, opposition leader Guaido declared himself president.

Similar to Venezuela, presidential elections in Bolivia prompted outrage. Evo Morales, the previous indigenous and socialist president of Bolivia, was set to assume his fourth term as president.

But after weeks of protests, Morales stepped down Sunday amid protests about inconsistencies with election results. After Morales left the country for political asylum in Mexico, Anez announced herself Tuesday as interim president.

In one of her first policy changes, Anez split dramatically from Morales’s administration by throwing support behind Guaido. Morales was one of Maduro’s biggest supporters.

In addition, Anez said Bolivia would leave the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, an organization of countries in Latin America with principally socialist and social democratic governments.

Bolivia has been a part of the organization since 2006, when Morales joined along with Venezuela and Cuba.

Anez said she is also considering leaving the Union of South American Nations, an intergovernmental organization that once included 12 countries.

Other countries, such as Colombia, have left the organization claiming the group supported a dictatorship in Venezuela.