Two very different versions have emerged of Sunday’s incident when Morales says his car was hit by bullets.

The Bolivian government has disputed claims by former President Evo Morales that he was the victim of an assassination attempt by police at the weekend in the latest incident heightening tensions between the popular Indigenous leader and his former ally, President Luis Arce.

Instead, the government on Monday accused Morales of staging an attempt on his own life, saying that the shots fired at his car on Sunday came after he tried to run a police checkpoint.

Morales claims the government attempted to assassinate him when bullets struck his car in the early hours of Sunday.

He said his driver was wounded as assailants with covered faces shot at him while he was en route to a radio station for an interview in the city of Cochabamba.

“The car in which I arrived has 14 bullet holes,” said Morales, adding: “This was planned. The idea was to kill Evo.”

Minister of Government Eduardo del Castillo responded during a news conference that an anti-drug trafficking unit was carrying out a standard highway patrol on Sunday when Morales’s convoy shot at police and ran over an officer. He denied that the former president was deliberately targeted.

“Mr Morales, nobody believes the theatre you have staged,” he told reporters.

Evidence destroyed

Morales’s vehicles were suspected of transporting drugs, according to the government.

Del Castillo added that Morales had instructed his vehicles to be burned after the run-in, destroying any evidence before it could be collected.

“If he had really been victim of an assassination attempt, it would have been in his interest to leave them intact” so that investigators could search them to collect evidence, del Castillo said.

The radio station that hosted the interview, Kawsachun Coca, released a video that it said was of the bullet-ridden pick-up truck that Morales had been in.

The windscreen had three bullet holes and the driver had blood on his head.

Rising tensions

Sunday’s incident comes amid rising tensions, with Morales’s supporters blocking highways in central Bolivia and security forces and police attempting to clear them.

On Saturday, the government criticised the former president for “destabilising” the country with two weeks of road blockades that have disrupted food and fuel supply nationwide.

The government also claimed in a statement that some groups allied with Morales were armed and warned of potential violence, noting that 14 police officers had been wounded while attempting to break up the blockades.

At least 44 protesters were arrested on Friday when more than 1,700 police officers were deployed to dismantle the roadblocks. Fourteen police officers were injured, according to the government.

Morales, 65, who held office from 2006 to 2019, is the main opponent of Arce, 61. They both belong to the same Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party. But the two leaders have clashed over the last year, part of a power struggle ahead of the 2025 presidential elections.

The country is also grappling with dwindling gas production, depleted foreign currency reserves and rising inflation, which is adding pressure on the governing party and increasing political infighting.

Morales is also facing allegations of relationships with minors. He was formally summoned by regional prosecutors to testify in the case but did not appear, and now faces an arrest warrant.

Morales strongly denies the accusations.