Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday joined those expressing concern about the ouster of Bolivian President Evo Morales, saying the nation had suffered a military coup.
“The U.S. must call for an end to violence and support Bolivia’s democratic institutions,” Sanders, a leading 2020 presidential candidate, said in a tweet.
The Organization of American States, which reported the election irregularities for which Bolivia’s military demanded Morales’s resignation, has declined to label the president’s resignation on Sunday as a coup.
President Trump voiced support for Morales’s ouster in a statement earlier Monday.{mosads}
“The United States applauds the Bolivian people for demanding freedom and the Bolivian military for abiding by its oath to protect not just a single person, but Bolivia’s constitution,” Trump said.
Sanders was joined in his condemnation of Morales’s resignation by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.), two progressive freshman Democrats who have also endorsed the Vermont senator in his 2020 bid for the White House.
“There’s a word for the President of a country being pushed out by the military. It’s called a coup,” Omar tweeted on Sunday.