Bolivia’s political landscape was rocked this week as the nation’s Supreme Court overturned the 10-year prison sentence of former interim President Jeanine Anez, ordering her immediate release after more than four years behind bars. The decision, delivered on Wednesday, November 5, 2025, marks a dramatic turn in a saga that has gripped Bolivia since the country’s turbulent 2019 political crisis.
Supreme Court Justice Romer Saucedo, speaking to reporters in La Paz, made the announcement that reverberated across the country. “The annulment of the sentence has been ordered. She had a final sentence of 10 years, and consequently, her release is ordered today,” Saucedo stated, as reported by AP and La Razon. The court’s ruling was based on what Saucedo described as “violations” of due process during Anez’s original trial, a sentiment echoed by seven of the nine justices who voted in favor of the annulment.
Anez, a conservative former senator, had been serving her sentence after being convicted in 2022 for what prosecutors called unconstitutional decisions and breaching her duties as interim president. She was arrested in March 2021, spending 20 months in pre-trial detention before her conviction. The charges stemmed from her controversial rise to the presidency in 2019, following the resignation and flight of then-president Evo Morales amid widespread protests and allegations of electoral fraud.
The 2019 crisis was a watershed moment in Bolivian politics. Morales, the country’s first Indigenous president and a figurehead of the left-wing Movement for Socialism (MAS) party, was seeking a fourth term when the Organization of American States denounced the election results as fraudulent. The military called for Morales to step down, and amid mass demonstrations—some turning deadly—he fled the country. Anez stepped into the leadership vacuum, declaring herself interim president in a move her critics, including MAS, labeled a coup.
Her administration was marked by intense unrest. According to Amnesty International, the crackdown on protests during her tenure resulted in at least 35 deaths and 833 injuries, though some reports place the death toll from the 2019 unrest as high as 37. These events became central to the charges brought against her after MAS returned to power in 2020 with the election of Luis Arce, Morales’s chosen successor.
In June 2022, Anez was convicted for her role in assuming the presidency and for decisions made during her interim government. Critics of the process, including her defense team, argued that Anez was denied a fair trial and should have been tried not in ordinary criminal courts but through a special “trial of responsibilities,” a political process reserved for sitting and former heads of state. The Supreme Court’s decision this week appears to vindicate that argument. As Saucedo explained, “She should have been tried by a special court in charge of trying crimes by lawmakers in the course of their duties and not by the criminal justice system.”
Adding another layer to the legal drama, the court’s president noted that the underlying criminal law used to convict Anez had been amended retrospectively, further undermining the legitimacy of the conviction. “The verdict was nullified because the criminal law was amended retrospectively,” Saucedo told the press, according to La Razon. The Supreme Court’s annulment of the sentence was not just about legal technicalities; it was intended, Saucedo said, “to guarantee the right to a fair trial.”
With the sentence overturned, the court ordered that Anez be subjected instead to a political trial, as her defense had requested. This special process, known as a “trial of responsibilities,” is designed to address alleged crimes committed by government officials while in office. The judiciary’s move effectively shifts the venue of accountability from the criminal courts to the political arena, where outcomes are often shaped as much by legislative alliances as by legal arguments.
Supporters of Anez gathered outside the Miraflores jail in La Paz, where she had been held, celebrating the court’s decision. The mood was one of cautious optimism, as her defense team prepared to initiate the release process. Anez herself did not immediately comment on the ruling, but on November 4, the day before the verdict, she posted on social media: “I will never regret having served my country when it needed me. I did it with a clear conscience and a steadfast heart, knowing that difficult decisions come at a price.”
The Supreme Court’s decision comes at a pivotal moment for Bolivia. Just weeks earlier, in October 2025, Bolivian voters had delivered a historic defeat to the MAS party in a presidential runoff. Rodrigo Paz Pereira, a senator from the center-right Christian Democratic Party (PDC), emerged victorious, ending nearly two decades of left-wing governance under Morales and Arce. Paz is set to be sworn in as president on November 8, 2025, ushering in what many see as a new era of political realignment.
The timing of the court’s decision has not gone unnoticed by political observers. Some see it as an attempt by the judiciary to reset the political climate in anticipation of the incoming administration, while others argue it simply reflects the need to correct a flawed legal process. The MAS party, for its part, has long insisted that Anez’s rise to power was illegitimate and has accused her of orchestrating a coup—a perspective that remains deeply divisive within Bolivian society.
For supporters of Anez and critics of the MAS, the Supreme Court’s ruling is a vindication of their claims that she was the victim of political persecution. For others, especially those who lost loved ones during the 2019 unrest, the decision is a bitter pill, raising questions about accountability and justice for the violence that scarred the nation.
What happens next is far from certain. Anez will now face a political trial, a process that could drag on for months or even years, depending on the shifting sands of Bolivian politics. Meanwhile, the country’s new president, Rodrigo Paz, will have to navigate the complex legacy of the past six years—a period marked by polarization, protest, and profound changes in the nation’s political identity.
As Bolivia stands at this crossroads, the fate of Jeanine Anez remains emblematic of the broader struggle over democracy, justice, and the rule of law in one of South America’s most volatile political arenas. The coming weeks will reveal whether the Supreme Court’s decision signals a genuine commitment to due process or simply the latest twist in an ongoing saga of power and accountability.
