Bolivia president asks all ministers to resign

Bolivia’s interim President Jeanine Anez has asked all her ministers to resign a little more than three months before a general election.

The news Sunday came just hours after communication minister Roxana Lizarraga resigned in protest at Anez’s decision to stand as a presidential candidate in the May 3 election.

Anez assumed the presidency on November 12, two days after Evo Morales resigned following three weeks of sometimes violent protests against his controversial re-election in a poll the Organization of American States said was rigged.

Anez, a little-known senator at the time, had said she had no intention of standing for the full-time job.

But that changed on Friday when she announced her candidacy.

Anez “has decided to ask for the resignation of all ministers to approach this new stage in the management of the democratic transition,” the presidency said in a statement.

The statement added that it was “usual” in an electoral cycle to have “adjustments in the working team of the Executive.”

Anez said she would name a new cabinet of 20 ministers “as soon as possible.”

Hours earlier, Lizarraga, who was appointed by Anez on November 13, criticized the interim president for having “lost sight of her objectives.”

Lizarraga said Anez had “started to fall into the same evils” as the party of her predecessor Morales.

“This is not the path the citizenry has signaled to us,” said Lizarraga.