Former Bolivian president Jeanine Anez was released from prison on Thursday after spending more than four years behind bars, following the Supreme Court’s annulment of her 10-year sentence for alleged coup plotting.
Anez, 58, walked out of the women’s penitentiary in La Paz to cheers from family and supporters, waving a Bolivian flag and declaring, “I will never regret having served my country.”
The former senator assumed Bolivia’s presidency in 2019 after Evo Morales fled amid mass protests over alleged election fraud. Her dramatic entry into office—holding up a large Bible and proclaiming, “Thank God, the Bible has returned to the Bolivian government”—sparked controversy and accusations of discrimination against the country’s indigenous majority, including Morales himself.
After Morales’ socialist party regained power in 2020, Anez was arrested and later convicted of illegally assuming the presidency, a verdict she has long denounced as politically motivated. “There was never a coup d’etat. What happened was electoral fraud that led all Bolivians to demand our right to have our votes respected,” she said upon her release.
The Supreme Court ruled that Anez’s trial should have been conducted by a special tribunal for lawmakers accused of crimes committed during official duties, not through the criminal justice system.
Her freedom comes just two days before the inauguration of Bolivia’s new centre-right president-elect, Rodrigo Paz, marking the end of nearly two decades of socialist rule initiated by Morales.
What You Should Know
Jeanine Anez, Bolivia’s interim leader from 2019 to 2020, was freed after her coup conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court.
Her release symbolises a major shift in Bolivian politics as a new centre-right government prepares to take power, ending the long socialist era led by Evo Morales.
