Bolivia’s protests, which began in early May, have intensified into a nationwide political and economic crisis just seven months after conservative PresidentRodrigo Paztook office, endingnearly two decadesof rule by the MovementToward Socialism(MAS), the party founded by former president Evo Morales.
Paz’s election in October 2025 was itself the product of MAS’s collapse. Incumbent president Luis Arce did not seek reelection amid internal party divisions and chronic shortages, and support for MAS cratered amid a deepening economic crisis. In the August 17 first round, Paz won 32.1% of the vote, Quiroga 26.7%, and Doria Medina 19.7%, with 87% turnout, according toIFES. TheEU Election Missionconfirmed those figures. Paz won the October 19 runoff with 54.5% to Quiroga’s 45.5%, perBolivia’s tribunal.
He swept six of nine regional departments, including the Andean highlands and the coca-producing region of Cochabamba, winning key swaths of Indigenous Aymara and working-class Bolivians that once comprisedMorales’ base. His party, however, does not hold a legislative majority.
The unrest began before Paz took office. In June 2025, after a constitutional court decision blocked Morales’s candidacy, his supporters staged mass protests and set up roadblocks that left four police officers and two protesters dead. Bolivia’s attorney generalopened an investigationinto Morales for alleged crimes related to the blockades. Morales separately faces criminal charges related to an alleged relationship with a minor in 2015; his supporters have reportedly shielded him from arrest.
Demonstrators, including labor unions, peasant organizations, and Indigenous groups, are demanding Paz’s resignation over rising inflation, fuel shortages, low wages, and his government’s decision to eliminate fuel subsidies. Beginning in May 2026, road closures spearheaded by the Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB), peasant unions, and miners emptied markets in La Paz and depleted hospital oxygen reserves.
Protesters have clashed with police using stones, firecrackers, sticks, and dynamite; security forces have responded with tear gas and arrests. At leastthree people diedafter emergency vehicles were blocked from reaching medical centers. Morales, facing an arrest warrant, mobilized his supporters for a190-kilometermarch toward La Paz to demand Paz’s resignation and the suspension of judicial proceedings against him.
Five weeks of protests and 28 days of blockades generated economic losses exceeding $1.6 billion according to private sector projections. As of early June, 103 active blockade points were registered across seven departments, preventing passage of food, fuel, medicine, and ambulances, with Cochabamba the epicenter at32 cut routes. According to Bolivia’s public ombudsman, the unrest between May 1 and June 2 resulted in 10 deaths, 37 injuries, and 365 arrests. Bolivia’s defense and education ministers resigned in early June, and the mayor of El Alto reported the city losing approximately$6.5 milliona day.
On June 7, Bolivia’s lower house approved a bill easing requirements for state of emergency declarations, after the Senate had already passed it. On June 8, President Paz signed the legislation and labeled the protesters “narco-terrorists.” The law could allow the military to act against demonstrations and suspend constitutional rights.
The socialists and allied protest groups are attempting to force Paz from office through sustained blockades and demonstrations, while the government is weighing stronger legal measures to restore order.
Bolivia’s crisis unfolds against a broader regional shift. Since April 2025, voters in Ecuador, Bolivia, Honduras, Chile, and Costa Rica have elected right-wing or conservative leaders, while Argentina’s 2025 midterm elections strengthened the position of President Javier Milei’s conservative party. A Trump ally and practitioner of Austrian economics, the same school in which the author holds a master’s degree, Milei has reduced government employment, cut welfare rolls, lowered the crime rate, tamed inflation, and produced the country’s first budget surplus in decades.
Source: The Gateway Pundit
