With kicks, punches and hair pulling, government and opposition deputies attacked each other this Tuesday during a public session of the Bolivian parliament, during the presentation of the report by a minister of President Luis Arce.
Government Minister Eduardo del Castillo was summoned by parliament to present a report on last December’s arrest of the governor of the Santa Cruz region, Luis Fernando Camacho, the country’s main opposition figure.
While defending the legality of the detention, Del Castillo criticized the deputies of Creemos, Camacho’s party, calling them “radical, thieving, violent groups that came to steal the pockets of the Bolivian people.”
During the minister’s speech, a group of opposition deputies showed posters with phrases such as “with political prisoners there is no democracy” and another group with a picture of Del Castillo and the caption “minister of terror”.
In response, some female government deputies marched against the opponents to tear down the posters, which led to the beginning of the exchange of aggression, according to images released on social networks.
Several deputies began a minutes-long fight with punches, punches, and hair-pulling. No MPs were seriously injured.
The presentation of the report was interrupted for several minutes and María René Álvarez, a Creemos deputy, accused Minister Del Castillo of encouraging a climate of belligerence.
The country’s vice president and president of Congress, David Choquehuanca, announced that he will convene the banks to demand that such incidents stop happening.
This confusion is another episode of polarization in the country: the opposition claims Bolivia has 180 political prisoners, accused by the leftist government of supporting an alleged coup against former President Evo Morales in 2019 and of supporting his successor , the right-wing politician Jeanine Áñez, who is also imprisoned.
Source: DN
