BOGOTA, Colombia _ Bolivia is in chaos after another night of arson attacks and clashes as the resignation of President Evo Morales left the nation with no clear leadership and no date set for new elections.
Morales quit on Sunday after election irregularities triggered weeks of violence and intervention from the armed forces. His vice president also quit, which should mean that power passes to the head of the senate, but she resigned too, as did the head of the lower house, leaving the country with a power vacuum.
Before he quit, Morales didn't set a date for new elections, and it's unclear when these will be held. The head of the electoral authority also resigned on Sunday, after the Organization of American States published a report saying the Oct. 20 presidential election had been marred by serious irregularities.
Several regional voting centers have been damaged by arson attacks, which will add to the difficulty of holding another vote. Jeanine Anez, an opposition senator and deputy-chair of the Senate, is a leading contender to be interim leader, according to local press reports.
Morales took office in 2006, and was the lone survivor of the so-called pink tide of leftist leaders that reshaped the continent's politics during the 2000s. Unlike his ally Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, he presided over strong economic growth, rising incomes and falling poverty. But his democratic credentials were questioned after he ignored the result of a 2016 referendum on presidential term limits.
Bolivia's top soldier General Williams Kaliman Romero on Sunday called on Morales to step down to restore peace to the country. Russia joined leftist governments in the region, including Mexico, Venezuela and Cuba, in denouncing what the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said on Monday appeared to have been "an orchestrated coup" against Morales. The U.S., which on Sunday criticized the "flawed" elections, kept a low profile over Morales's departure.
Morales said he was leaving office to avoid violence, adding that he wouldn't flee the country since he hadn't stolen anything. Even so, the violence continued. Morales said in a post on Twitter Monday that his house and his sister's house were attacked, and that his ministers have received threats.
Read More: OAS Urges Bolivia to Hold New Elections as Unrest Grows
Russia hasn't received a request for asylum from Morales, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday on a conference call. The crisis in Bolivia should be resolved without interference from other countries, he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Morales "our partner and friend" during the Bolivian's visit to Moscow in July, saying relations with Bolivia were "genuinely strategic" with extensive investments by Russian state-owned energy companies including Gazprom and Rosatom.
Political consultants linked to the Kremlin went to Bolivia to try to help Morales win October's election, using online social media campaigns that targeted his opponents, the Proekt news website reported last month, citing three officials it didn't identify. The goal was to secure the long-term presence of Russian companies working in Bolivia, it said.
An Aymara Indian in a country historically ruled by a wealthier, white elite, Morales swept to power promising to "nationalize everything." In practice, his Movement Toward Socialism party was much more pragmatic.
Morales could have remained in power and held another election had he not lost the support of the army, said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, a group representing U.S. businesses.
"Even today in Latin America, the arbiter remains the security forces, and that was proven today in Bolivia," said Farnsworth, who worked on Latin American issues at the White House during the Bill Clinton administration.
