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Bolivia Senator Declares Herself President After Evo Morales Was Ousted

“I assume the presidency immediately and will do everything necessary to pacify the country,” Sen. Jeanine Añez Chavez told lawmakers.

A leading Bolivian lawmaker has stepped forward to claim the presidency after ousted President Evo Morales was forced to resign and then fled to Mexico. “I assume the presidency immediately and will do everything necessary to pacify the country,” Sen. Jeanine Añez Chavez told fellow lawmakers Tuesday. Bolivia’s highest constitutional court backed her assumption of power on the basis that she’s the highest-ranking politician in the line of succession. Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, resigned Sunday after the country’s army chief urged him to go. Morales denounced Añez’s move as illegitimate, saying she had acted “without legislative quorum, surrounded by a group of accomplices, and supported by the armed forces and the police, which repress the people.” He urged his remaining supporters in the legislature to battle on, and congratulated his allies for refusing to show up at the session at which his resignation would have been formally accepted, and Añez was recognized as the country’s interim leader.