“They were trying to win popular support and the support of the Bolivian people,” he said. “But the people of Bolivia no longer want coup adventures.”
Mr. del Castillo added that nine people had suffered firearm injuries amid the chaos.
The office of Bolivia’s attorney general announced on Wednesday evening that it had opened an investigation into General Zuñiga “and all the other participants” in the day’s events, adding that it would seek “the maximum punishment” for those responsible.
Local news outlets previously reported that General Zuñiga was dismissed from his position this week, which some in the country believed to be related to remarks he made about former President Evo Morales, a mentor of Mr. Arce.
The coup attempt came at a tense moment for Bolivia, a landlocked nation of 12 million people in South America. Mr. Arce, a leftist and the handpicked successor of Mr. Morales — the country’s first Indigenous president and a towering figuring in Bolivian politics — is battling with Mr. Morales for control over their party and who will be its candidate in a 2025 race.
Bolivia’s economy is struggling, and Mr. Arce has been accused of moves his critics call undemocratic, including the detention of the opposition figure Luis Fernando Camacho and former President Jeanine Áñez.
