De facto president of Bolivia faces cabinet crisis in less than a month

LA PAZ (Sputnik) – The de facto president of Bolivia, Jeanine Anez, suffered the first crisis of her ministerial cabinet due to the resignation of the Minister of the Presidency, Xerxes Justiniano, just three weeks after starting her administration after the fall of the Evo Morales indigenous.

Justinian was replaced by the one who was until now Minister of Public Works, Yerko Nunez, who in turn was replaced by Ivan Arias, a political analyst and well-known activist of the protests against the past Morales government, according to the official broadcast of the act of possession.

In the same act of taking an oath in the Government Palace, Anez gave possession to his Prime Minister of Labor, Oscar Mercado.

Justinian was a strong man of the Government and one of the main defenders of a controversial decree that mobilized the military in internal tasks, freeing them from criminal responsibility; resigned harassed by allegations of manipulation of justice and interference in the Ministry of Communication.

In the first case, a prosecutor and the defense of a victim of group rape in Santa Cruz (east) had denounced since last week that Justinian, who was until October the defendant's lawyer, exerted pressures and manipulations that made the trial difficult.

In the second incident, a Vice Minister of Communication, Danilo Romano, resigned on Monday accusing the now ex-minister of having pressured him to sign agreements with foreign consultations and to make massive layoffs of personnel.

Justiniano, who came from the team of the former civic leader of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho, denied the charges a couple of hours before his relay took place.

Of the new head of the Presidency, Yerko Nunez, Anez said that he was a person of his "absolute confidence" to accompany her in government management and in support of the general elections scheduled for the first half of next year.

Nunez, meanwhile, said he assumed the new responsibility following the presidential instruction to improve the levels of management and coordination.