LAST WOMAN STANDING

EVO'S ALLIES WHO HELD SENIOR POSTS FLED, LEAVING ANEZ THE MOST SENIOR OFFICIAL STILL STANDING. SHE DECLARED THAT IT WAS UP TO HER TO TAKE THE REINS OF POWER IMMEDIATELY

CONSERVATIVE SENATOR Jeanine Anez was unknown to many Bolivians before she stepped out beaming and waving a Bible on the balcony of the government palace.

A LONGTIME critic of her leftist predecessor Evo Morales, she stepped into the power vacuum left when he suddenly fled the country to escape a violent crisis.

ANEZ IS a 52-year-old lawyer from the northeastern region of Beni, bordering Brazil.

AS SECOND deputy speaker of the Senate, Anez was sworn in by her allies after all the other officials in line to act as interim president had fled.

SHE IMMEDIATELY made a point of marking herself out from Morales, a socialist who had done away with religious oaths of office.

SHE CAST herself as the only one in a position to lead the country out of its crisis, sparked by claims that Morales rigged his re-election last month.

MORALES BRANDED her 'a coup-mongering right-wing senator.' He said she had “declared herself... interim president without a legislative quorum, surrounded by a group of accomplices.”

ANEZ BECAME the South American country’s 66th president and the second woman to hold the post.

THE LAST woman to serve as Bolivia’s president was Lidia Gueiler, who held the post for less than two years before being deposed in a military coup in 1980.

ANEZ PROMISED to hold fresh elections ‘as soon as possible’.

ANEZ SERVED from 2006 to 2008 as member of an assembly that drew up the current constitution. She has been a senator since 2010.

SHE IS a member of a minority conservative political group, Democratic Unity.

SHE WAS named second deputy leader of the Senate in line with a tradition that all parties be represented in the top posts.

HER SWEARING-IN, approved by the Constitutional Court, sparked jubilation in her hometown of Trinidad.