Once in the Senate, the National Convergence caucus quickly fragmented, leading Áñez to abandon it in favor of the emergent Social Democratic Movement, an autonomist political party based in the eastern departments.

On 12 November 2019, she installed an extraordinary session of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly that lacked quorum due to the absence of members of Morales' party, the Movement for Socialism (MAS-IPSP), who demanded security guarantees before attending.

[4][5] Responding to domestic unrest, Áñez issued a decree removing criminal liability for military and police in dealing with protesters, which was repealed amid widespread condemnation following the Senkata and Sacaba massacres.

[13] During this time, Áñez became an early supporter of the autonomist movement, conceived as a profound redesign of the country's existing centralized structure, expanding departmental self-determination over resources and providing for the election of regional authorities through universal suffrage.

[19] Áñez entered the assembly "with great expectations" of codifying departmental autonomy into the statutes of the new constitution of the State but soon became frustrated by long delays in the drafting process brought about by the requirement of two-thirds support for the approval of articles.

[20][21] Following the end of her term in the Constituent Assembly, Áñez remained close with Beni's prefect, Ernesto Suárez, who supported the establishment of a united opposition bloc to confront the Movement for Socialism (MAS-IPSP) in the 2009 general elections.

When Costas' civic group Truth and Social Democracy (Verdes) established itself as a regional political party in 2011, she attended its departmental congress as a representative for Governor Ernesto Suárez and Santa Cruz Mayor Percy Fernández.

[51] At meetings sponsored by the Bolivian Episcopal Conference—the Catholic Church's authority in the country—and the European Union, opposition and ruling party delegates discussed the feasibility of Áñez's succession to the presidency as a possible solution to the power vacuum.

[69] Among members of her party, Governor Rubén Costas conveyed his hope that Áñez find "success in her crucial mission of leading the nation" while Senator Óscar Ortiz stated: "God bless and enlighten the new president of Bolivia".

On 18 November, Jorge Quiroga presented two draft bills that he claimed would allow Áñez to call elections and designate members of the Supreme and Departmental Electoral Tribunals by way of decree, though he also stated that the ideal would be to solve the issue through the Legislative Assembly.

[108] Though the TSE was initially mandated to set a date for new elections within forty-eight hours of taking office, it was later extended to ten days in order to grant its members the proper amount of preparatory time to organize the electoral calendar.

Áñez almost immediately filed an objection, arguing that it would be unfeasible to "forc[e] almost six million people to take to the streets in a single day ... in the midst of a pandemic"; she demanded that the TSE's September recommendation be approved instead.

[116] This sentiment was later reiterated by Minister of the Presidency Yerko Núñez and confirmed by the Agencia Boliviana de Información—the government press agency—which released an official statement claiming that "there are no political calculations behind [Áñez's] administration".

Finally, at a rally in La Paz held on 24 January 2020, Áñez launched her presidential campaign on behalf of the right-wing, Democrat-led Juntos alliance, justifying that the opposition's failure to consolidate had forced her to present herself as a unifying consensus candidate.

For Mesa, whose centrist Civic Community (CC) coalition saw two of its major components split off to join Juntos, Áñez's decision to run was "a big mistake" that affected her ability to manage the transition "with neutrality".

[122] In an opinion piece for The New York Times, journalist Sylvia Colombo stated that, in announcing her candidacy, Áñez "not only broke a promise but also took away from her interim government the best argument to convince skeptics that the departure of Evo Morales ... was not a coup".

[121] In an opinion column published by Correo del Sur, Samuel Doria Medina, leader of the National Unity Front, was initially critical of Áñez's for using "the resources of state institutions ... [to] benefit [herself]".

[129] Though analysts observed that Áñez's withdrawal could potentially boost Mesa's campaign enough to achieve a runoff—in which he was overwhelmingly favored to win—the results of 18 October ultimately indicated that Arce had won a surprise victory in the first round, reaching fifty-five percent of the vote.

[140] In response, on 14 May, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) deemed the decree excessive and requested that the Áñez administration modify it in order to "not to criminalize freedom of expression".

[155][156][157] After a thorough review of the case files, researchers from Human Rights Watch (HRW) deemed many of these charges to be "politically motivated", calling the twenty-year prison term sought for Morales "wholly disproportionate".

[161] On 4 February 2020, Áñez received Asaf Ichilevich, Israeli ambassador to Peru with jurisdiction over Bolivia, and Shmulik Bass, director of Israel's department for South America, at the Palacio Quemado.

[162] Prior to Áñez's presidency, diplomatic relations between Bolivia and the United States had been suspended for the previous twelve years since the Morales administration expelled Ambassador Philip Goldberg in 2008 on accusations of espionage.

Various media outlets reported that this constituted a resumption of diplomatic relations between the two states, though Áñez's government clarified that Serrate was only on a temporary special mission and that the president chosen in the next elections would be allowed to decide whether or not to formally appoint an ambassador.

[186] Jim Shultz, founder of the Bolivia-focused Democracy Center, warned that the incident represented a "cycle of retribution" in the country's justice system: "[This] feels less like a legal process and more like they are taking turns trying to destroy one another".

In an op-ed published by El País, the organization stated that "victims will not be served by one-sided investigations that violate due process ... During the Áñez administration, we called on prosecutors to drop abusive charges and uphold human rights.

[193] Judge Regina Santa Cruz of the Ninth Criminal Investigation Court of La Paz agreed with that assessment on the grounds that the former president had attempted to evade capture, was arrested at an address different than her own, and was discovered with packed suitcases.

Unlike in the previous two hearings, media outlets were barred from witnessing the proceedings, prompting the National Press Association to denounce violations of its constitutional right to access information of public interest.

Among the discarded documents were the Organization of American States' report on the results of the 2019 elections, the TCP's initial ruling on the constitutionality of Áñez's succession, and the Bolivian Episcopal Conference's official account detailing Church-mediated meetings preceding her arrival to power.

[261] On 20 April 2022, Áñez publicly issued a letter addressed to Carlos Mesa and Luis Fernando Camacho requesting that they, as leaders of the opposition blocs in the Legislative Assembly, make possible the initiation of a trial of responsibilities in the legislature.

[265] In January 2023, a judge in La Paz decided that Áñez would face trial via ordinary tribunal over the alleged homicides of civilians during the protests over the course of her government, including charges of genocide and bodily harm.