Jeanine Áñez’ health deteriorates in prison; additional tests are required

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The former interim president of Bolivia Jeanine Áñez, imprisoned for more than a month in La Paz, suffered a deterioration of her health that requires complementary laboratory tests determined after a review conducted by private and State doctors at the request of her defense lawyers.

In the morning, the former interim president’s Facebook and Twitter accounts published a message advising that “Áñez suffered today a deterioration of her health”. The tweet asked for the “urgent entry of private medical personnel” to the prison to check her.

“We have been informed this morning that last night she had a fever, 39 degrees, vomiting, and intense abdominal pain”, explained the lawyer Ariel Coronado, part of the team defending the former interim president.

For this reason, authorization was requested for an internist to enter the women’s prison in the La Paz neighborhood of Miraflores, where the former interim governor is being held in preventive detention, he said.

The lawyer recalled that whenever Áñez requires a review for health issues, the authorities demand that it be “joint” between her private doctors and those of the Directorate of the Penitentiary Regime, which depends on the Ministry of Government (Interior).

According to local media, the doctor was finally allowed to enter the prison in the mid-afternoon and was asked to carry out complementary laboratory tests on Áñez, which will be done this Tuesday.

A statement released in the evening on the social networks of the former president states that “she is suffering from hyperventilation, feverish syndrome and acute pains in the stomach, which could result from a probable renal complication or other” to be ruled out by the laboratory tests requested.

These tests “are urgent” and should have been carried out this day, which “was not possible due to the refusal of the Governor’s Office of the prison,” the communiqué states.

The note also denounces that in the last few days, there has been a “delay” in the requests for specialist doctors and laboratory equipment” to attend to Áñez, which “continues to harm her already delicate state of health”.

THE BACKGROUND

Áñez has been in prison for more than a month for the so-called “coup d’état” case based on allegations of alleged conspiracy, sedition, and terrorism during the political and social crisis that occurred at the end of 2019 and resulted in the resignation of Morales to the Presidency and the annulment of the elections of that year amid allegations of fraud.

The arrest of the former transitional president and two of her former ministers generated tensions between the ruling party, which defends that “justice” is being sought in the face of what they consider a “coup d’état” against Evo Morales, and the opposition, which denounces a political “persecution”, in addition to pronouncements from international organizations that called for due process to be respected.

Last week there was also controversy between the government and the opposition after a visit of a commission of deputies to the prison.

The deputies of the governmental Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) claim that the former president enjoys alleged privileges in prison, while the opposition denounces that several of her rights are violated.

A group of parliamentarians from the opposition blocks Comunidad Ciudadana, and Creemos announced a trip to the United States to denounce before international organizations the “violation of the democratic order” and the “political persecution” of the Government of Luis Arce against opponents, police, and military for the 2019 crisis.