The president of Bolivia, Rodrigo Paz, made public this Wednesday that several ministers of his cabinet and also some parliamentarians have been the subject of "death threats" directed against them and their relatives in the days when the dismissal of Róger Mariaca as attorney general for his alleged links to drug trafficking and his replacement by José Armando Urioste, a change marked by an intense process in the Legislative Assembly, took place.
As he explained, these pressures have occurred while the political and legal process that culminated in Mariaca's departure and Urioste's appointment at the head of the Attorney General's Office was advancing, a change that has generated strong tensions in the country.
"The ministers tell me: 'President, this is a government that decides,' but they threaten our families, they throw threats at us on WhatsApp," Paz recounted during an official event held in the city of Trinidad, in the department of Beni, in the north of the country, according to information disseminated by the Bolivian newspaper "la Razón."
The leader added that the situation is not limited to the Executive and that it also affects members of the Legislative power. "Many parliamentarians received death threats against their families on their WhatsApp," he warned, emphasizing the seriousness of the climate of harassment that, according to him, surrounds the authorities in this context.
At the same time, Paz pointed out that, regarding his own person, this type of event is part of something "everyday." "I already told my wife and my children that I do not fear death for the homeland, because death cannot be greater than the life we can give to the construction of a better Bolivia," the leader stated, who insisted that "there will be much sacrifice and there will be much effort" in the government task he leads.
In this line, he guaranteed that he will not hide and that he will continue to face criticism and threats, without making direct reference to the objections raised by the opposition regarding the dismissal of Mariaca and the appointment of Urioste to lead the Attorney General's Office.
Róger Mariaca has been in preventive detention since Monday, in the framework of the accusations of drug trafficking against him. The case has advanced rapidly since the end of September, when the United States imposed sanctions against the former attorney general and other Bolivian authorities.
The investigations point to Mariaca, who took over the leadership of the Public Ministry in October 2024, having led an alleged criminal network within the Bolivian judicial system aimed at providing protection to powerful drug trafficking organizations, among them those linked to well-known criminals such as the Uruguayan Sebastián Marset.