Bolivia’s protests, which began in early May, have intensified into a nationwide political and economic crisis just seven months after conservative President Rodrigo Paz took office, ending nearly two decades of rule by the Movement Toward 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 to IFES. The EU Election Mission confirmed those figures. Paz won the October 19 runoff with 54.5% to Quiroga’s 45.5%, per Bolivia’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 comprised Morales’ 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 general opened an investigation into 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 least three people died after emergency vehicles were blocked from reaching medical centers. Morales, facing an arrest warrant, mobilized his supporters for a 190-kilometer march 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 at 32 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 million a 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.
Peru’s June 7 presidential runoff between right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori and leftist Roberto Sánchez remained uncalled as of June 9. With nearly 95% of votes tallied, Sánchez led 50.10% to 49.90%, with only a few thousand votes separating them. A preliminary Ipsos count showed a statistical tie, and the pollster’s director said a full count would be necessary to determine a winner. Sánchez declined to concede; Fujimori said she would accept the official tally. The result may not be certified until mid-July. “Whoever wins will have half the country against them,” a political analyst at the Peruvian Studies Institute told AFP.
According to Latinobarómetro, the share of Latin Americans identifying as center-right has been higher since 2024 than at any point in more than two decades. Brazil’s October 4 presidential election, the region’s largest, will determine whether that shift reaches Latin America’s biggest democracy. Incumbent leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is seeking an unprecedented fourth term at age 80, while former President Jair Bolsonaro, now serving a 27-year prison sentence for plotting a coup after the 2022 election, has passed his political mantle to his son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who has pledged to seek his father’s release if elected.
A Datafolha survey found both candidates tied at 45% in a hypothetical runoff, with Flávio drawing support from conservative evangelicals, agribusiness interests, and security forces. Lula is reportedly considering replacing his “rebuilding” message with anti-establishment attacks on the financial elite, a theme long associated with the Bolsonaro camp. Brazil and Colombia remain two of South America’s last major left-leaning presidencies; a Bolsonaro victory would largely complete the region’s political realignment.
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