Lima asserted that the application of the results of the Santa Cruz Council was unconstitutional, since she intends to give the departmental Legislative Assembly powers equivalent to the Plurinational in relation to the selection of judicial authorities.
During the non-binding public forum in Santa Cruz, “Citizen” leader Rómulo Calvo approved orders for the Santa Cruz Brigade to introduce a bill for departmental legislatures to elect short-listed candidates for judicial posts.
Participants also agreed to participate in the signature collection campaign, which aims to nominate nine “notables” with the aim of selecting shortlists of candidates so that the legislature can then approve the list of candidates for the judicial elections.
“The attempt to implement these decisions of the departmental assembly compromises the essential foundations of the state and can only be the result of a constituent assembly that must be approved by a two-thirds vote,” Lima argued in a message on his Twitter account.
The Santa Cruz Council also threatened to revoke President Luis Arce’s mandate if he does not proceed with an amnesty for what “citizens” call political prisoners, such as Santa Cruz Gov. Luis Fernando Camacho, who, as a precautionary measure imprisoned is arrest. Santa Cruz’s highest law enforcement agency was arrested on December 28, transferred to the Department of La Paz, and jailed in Chonchocoro as a precautionary measure on the Coup d’état I file, which charges him with terrorism, active bribery, and seduction of troops the collapse of the constitutional order in Bolivia.
As a result of this conspiracy, a de facto government was installed in November 2019, 37 people were killed, hundreds injured and thousands of human rights violations were recorded in the repression of those demanding the restoration of democracy.
For Presidential spokesman Jorge Richter, “What they are really pursuing as a political action, and that is to shorten President Luis Arce’s mandate, to see if that way they can find something they call ‘amnesty’, but what actually is impunity”.
The government has ruled out enforcing this demand as it would run counter to the victims and the recommendations of the interdisciplinary group of independent experts that investigated the violence and deaths in the 2019 coup.
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