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.

Now all eyes in the country are on Anez, 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 or resigned. From Mexico, Morales said the move showed he had been ousted by a coup.

Fresh from being sworn in, Anez posed with a purple Bible in her hand and the green, yellow and red presidential sash across her shoulder, waving to supporters with a broad smile.

A proud Christian, she immediately made a point of marking herself out from Morales, who had done away with religious oaths of office.

At one point she raised above her head a big old leather-bound copy of the Gospels.

“God has allowed the Bible to come back into the [presidential] palace. May he bless us,” she said.

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.

“According to constitutional order, it is my role to take up this challenge with the sole aim of calling new elections,” she said in televised comments.

“I am committed to take all measures necessary to pacify the country,” she said later at her swearing-in session.

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.”

“It’s a commitment we have made to the country and of course, we will fulfill it.”

Anez has a degree in juridical sciences and law and had worked as a lawyer.

Bolivian media reported that Anez is divorced and has two children aged 29 and 24. Her ex-husband was Hector Carvajal, a Colombian politician.

In 2006, she joined the Constituent Assembly that helped draft Bolivia’s current constitution.

In 2010, Anez assumed office as senator for the northeastern department of Beni. At the time, she was aligned with PPB-CN, a right-wing coalition that became the largest opposition political party in parliament following the 2009 elections.

The coalition ceased to exist in 2014, and Anez joined the Democrat Socialist Movement in the general election held that year.

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.

She is known as a staunch opponent of Morales. She called him a “tyrant” as police clashed with anti-government protesters last week, and called for his resignation.

The South American country has seen protests since an election Oct. 20 in which Morales was re-elected as president, a vote which the Organization of American States (OAS) alleges had gross “manipulations” of electric computer systems.

Tens of thousands took to the streets of La Paz in the weeks after the polls.

Morales, 60, had been Bolivia’s president for more than 13 years before his resignation Sunday.

Morales drew controversy earlier this year when he called a referendum to expand presidential term limits, a move his critics say was an attempt by him to hold on to power. The referendum failed, but he ran for a fourth term anyway, winning 47.1 percent of the vote in the Oct. 20 poll.

He eventually resigned after heads of the military and police demanded he step down amid continued protests. Some described the military intervention as a coup d’etat. Morales subsequently fled to Mexico, where he was granted asylum.

A former media executive, Anez said before she declared herself president that she would lead a transition focused on selecting an honest electoral commission and holding elections as soon as possible.

“This is simply a transitory moment,” she said earlier Tuesday. “There is an urgency.”

Her swearing-in sparked jubilation in her hometown of Trinidad.

Opponents of Morales also celebrated in La Paz and other major cities.

Anez has supported the use of the “wiphala” flag alongside the Bolivian national flag.

The wiphala is a multicolored symbol of Andean indigenous peoples that is waved by supporters of Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president.

Referring to the accusations against Morales, Anez vowed that “never again” would an election be rigged.

She called a minute of silence for people who been killed in the recent weeks of unrest.

It seemed uncertain that Anez would be able to calm the tense and deeply polarized nation. Shortly after her announcement, members of Morales’s party, who hold a two-thirds majority in Congress, said they would hold another legislative session Wednesday to nullify her decision.

Supporters of Anez have set up barricades in recent days around the assembly’s plaza, along with the national police, and it remained uncertain whether they would even allow the Morales party lawmakers to enter the building.

Clashes broke out on the streets of La Paz Tuesday evening after Anez’s declaration. Morales supporters tried to reach the Congress building, shouting: “She must quit.”

Anez will need to form a new electoral court, find non-partisan staff for the electoral tribunal and get congress to vote on a new election.

Anez swore in a new Cabinet as well as new commanders-in-chief for all branches of the military Wednesday, replacing Kaliman, who had been a Morales loyalist, with Gen. Carlos Orellana. The move was seen as an effort to build an alliance with the military, although it was uncertain how much support she could count on from other Bolivian power centers.

According to the constitution, an interim president has 90 days to organize an election. She said the constitution did not specifically require congressional approval. “My commitment is to return democracy and tranquility to the country,” she said. “They can never again steal our vote.”

Bolivia’s top constitutional court issued a statement late Tuesday laying out the legal justification for Anez taking the presidency — without mentioning her by name.

But other legal experts challenged the legal technicalities that led to her claim, saying at least some of the steps required Congress to meet.

Eduardo Gamarra, a Bolivian political scientist at Florida International University, said the constitution clearly states that Anez didn’t need a congressional vote to assume the presidency. Even so, “the next two months are going to be extraordinarily difficult for President Anez,” he said.

“It doesn’t seem likely” that Morales’ party will accept Anez as president, said Jennifer Cyr, an associate professor of political science and Latin American studies at the University of Arizona. “So the question of what happens next remains — still quite unclear and extremely worrying.”

In comments to the news media, Morales remained defiant, vowing to continue his involvement in politics and his fight for social justice, Bolivia’s indigenous populations and the poor.

At a Wednesday news conference in Mexico, he said, “If the people ask me, we are willing to return.”(SD-Agencies)