The former interim president of Bolivia Jeanine Áñez (2019-2020) left prison this Thursday, where she was imprisoned for four years and eight months for accusations linked to the 2019 crisis, after the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) annulled the ten-year sentence against her and ordered her release.
The former transitional president left through the main door of the Miraflores Women’s Guidance Center in the city of La Paz, with a Bolivian flag in her hand and accompanied by her children Carolina and José Armando Ribera.
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READ: Áñez thanks the Supreme Court for listening to a “public truth” about the 2019 crisis in Bolivia
In her first statements out of prison, Áñez confirmed that in 2019 “there was never a coup d’état in this country, what there was was electoral fraud” that led Bolivians to “demand” that the vote in the general elections of that year “be respected.”
“I will never regret having served my country when my country needed it. That is the commitment that every Bolivian who loves his country has to make and I assumed it even knowing that at some point it was going to have a cost,” said the former governor.
He also assured that his time in prison was “very hard, very painful,” but that he learned to have “the strength of resilience” in the face of a confinement that he considered “unfair.”
Jeanine Áñez left through the main door of the Miraflores Women’s Guidance Center in the city of La Paz, with a Bolivian flag in her hand and accompanied by her children Carolina and José Armando Ribera. Photo: AFP / Aizar Raldes
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The TSJ reported the day before on the annulment of Áñez’s conviction, her “acquittal” and the order for her “immediate freedom” for the so-called ‘coup d’état II’ case, for which she was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2022, accused of illegally placing herself in the line of succession in 2019.
The aforementioned sentence was also ratified in 2023 by the TSJ, although at that time other magistrates were in charge, while those who reviewed the sentence were elected in the judicial elections of 2024.
In reviewing the sentence, at the request of the former president’s defense, the judges saw that “there were violations of the current legal system” that “have affected due process” and also “her rights.”
Former Bolivian president Jeanine Áñez greets from inside the Miraflores women’s prison in La Paz, on November 5, 2025. (Jorge BERNAL / AFP)
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The Supreme Court resolution indicates that “the succession was not an act of usurpation, but an act of constitutional necessity” and considers that the court that convicted Áñez “failed to assess that the resignations” of those who were before the former president in the line of succession in 2019 “were public, express and with immediate effect.”
“Áñez Chávez did not act with intent, he did not harm a protected legal asset and his actions were protected by a state of constitutional necessity aimed at preserving the institutional continuity of the Bolivian State,” the resolution indicates.
Áñez assumed interim command of the country on November 12, 2019, two days after the resignation of then-ruler Evo Morales (2006-2019) and all officials in line for presidential succession.
Morales resigned and left the country claiming to be the victim of a “coup d’état”, amid citizen protests over allegations of electoral fraud in his favor in the 2019 general elections that were later annulled.
Áñez was arrested in March 2021 as part of the process known as ‘coup d’état I’, initiated by a former representative of the still government Movement towards Socialism (MAS), due to the 2019 crisis.
Last August, the TSJ ordered a review of the deadlines for preventive detentions in all processes against Áñez and two other regional leaders opposed to the MAS, which led to the release of these politicians.
The courts annulled the ordinary proceedings against Áñez, which were transferred to the Legislature to be addressed in a liability trial, and the review of her sentence was pending, which was reported on Wednesday.
