“Of course, I’ll vote for my son,” the 86-year-old former Bolivian president (1989–1993) Jaime Paz Zamora said in an interview ahead of the elections. However, he added that his son was unlikely to win. He must have been as surprised as anyone when his son, Rodrigo Paz Pereira, representing the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) emerged as the frontrunner in the presidential election on 17 August with 32 percent of valid votes. The run-off will be held on 19 October against Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga Ramírez of the conservative, economically liberal alliance LIBRE, who received 27 percent.
Peter Strack is a sociologist, writes regularly for the taz blog Latinorama, and has had ties to Bolivia since 1978.
It was also surprising that Samuel Doria Medina, who had long been leading in the polls, ended up in third place with just under 19 percent of the vote. Despite an intensive campaign and well-attended public appearances, the businessman from the social-democratic camp failed to mobilize greater support. Moreover, according to the fact-checking platform Bolivia Verifica, most online disinformation had targeted Doria Medina: he was accused of conducting secret negotiations over lithium deposits, bribing polling firms, and buying up media outlets. He was also accused of planning to cut pensions and bonuses, labelled a Communist, and alleged to be backed by the Movement for Socialism (MAS), the party in government for the past 20 years.
Once Doria Medina was out of the race, fake news campaigns shifted to focus on election frontrunner Paz Pereira. It was claimed that 70 percent of the elected PDC deputies were actually MAS members. In reality, only seven out of 63 were. Most are representatives of neighbourhood organizations and committee members from the skilled trades and small businesses with no party affiliation. It remains to be seen how loyal they will be to the leading candidate and how many might switch sides.
The Collapse of MAS Support
The Left fielded three candidates. Former Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo, representing the MAS which is currently controlled by incumbent President Luis Arce, received just over 3 percent of the vote. Andrónico Rodriguez, long seen as Evo Morales’ heir and who, like him, hails from the coca growers’ movement, ran for the Popular Allliance and garnered 8.5 percent.
Evo Morales himself urged his supporters to cast deliberately invalid ballots, and with nearly 20 percent of votes being cast as null, declared himself the sole legitimate representative of the Left. His newly founded EVO Pueblo movement is not yet registered as a party, and the Constitutional Court barred him from running for president on other lists on questionable grounds. Thus, the high number of invalid votes represents a Pyrrhic victory, given the now minimal left-wing representation in parliament. The Senate will only include members of the current opposition, while the Chamber of Deputies will have just two MAS deputies and eight from the Popular Alliance.
Neither the former interior minister Eduardo del Castillo, who campaigned presenting himself as a young reformer, nor the incumbent Senate president Andrónico Rodriguez managed to convince voters with their proposed reforms.
Even in the indigenous special constituencies, the MAS won only two of seven seats. This comes as no surprise, as for decades MAS has allowed its supporters to occupy lands on indigenous lowland territories, and facilitated the destruction and contamination of natural resources by mining cooperatives. The ruling party also made every effort to divide indigenous organizations through corruption and co-optation. “Borrow money from the bank”, a MAS official reportedly advised an Aymara village delegate to cover the sum demanded by party leaders for a candidacy, plus the requisite crates of beer, according to Milka Arteaga, who interviewed Aymara communities about their disillusionment with politics. If elected, she was told, she could recover the money.
Mismanagement and Corruption
Many young, qualified people have emigrated, as regular employment is nearly impossible without making regular payments into party coffers. On top of this came corruption scandals at the highest level: several ministers had to resign over bribery charges, and opaque business dealings involving President Arce’s children have come to light. The allegations against Evo Morales for having sexual relations with underaged women and, most recently, a lawsuit against Luis Arce for payment of alimony further undermine the MAS’s moral capital.
Above all, the government has failed to address growing economic problems: rising national debt, the selling off of gold reserves, pension funds under threat, and inflation that is now at 25 percent. The shortage of foreign currency and fuel is most noticeable. Vehicles sometimes queue for days at petrol stations. Agricultural production is also affected by this, as well as by the road blockades organized by Evo Morales in an attempt to force the acceptance of his presidential candidacy.
Neither the former interior minister Eduardo del Castillo, who campaigned presenting himself as a young reformer, nor the incumbent Senate president Andrónico Rodriguez managed to convince voters with their proposed reforms. Apart from defending the social achievements of the MAS, their proposals differed only slightly from those of the opposition candidates. Why take action only after the election and not now, when they are in government and have a parliamentary majority?
However, public discontent is directed not only at Arce’s government but also at his predecessor, Morales. “If you want to complain about prices, speak to these two gentlemen”, reads a poster at the Miraflores market in La Paz, featuring photos of Arce and Morales. Although most of MAS’s loyalists still follow coca grower leader Morales, the majority of the indigenous and common people he claims to represent voted differently in August.
No Return to the Past
The fact that Paz Pereira was able to win votes primarily in former MAS strongholds is not a sign that his PDC is merely a Trojan horse for the MAS or the new EVO Pueblo party, as claimed in countless Facebook and TikTok posts aimed at discrediting him. Anger at MAS’s mismanagement does not equate to a rejection of the indigenous inclusion process it championed.
Paz appeals to artisans, small businesspeople, and people in the transport sector. For many, it’s all about the informal economy — smuggling and avoiding taxes — in short, defending the survival strategies they rely on in the economic crisis.
Mario Rodríguez of Wayna Tambo, a partner organization of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, claims that during his conversations in El Alto and rural communities he sensed a strong desire to defend the gains of an anti-colonial, plurinational Bolivia. With none of the divided MAS factions standing a chance of victory, Paz Pereira appeared to be the candidate least associated with the traditional right.
Quiroga’s International Connections
The second run-off candidate, Jorge Quiroga, denies involvement in online disinformation campaigns, although his adviser Jaime Durán Barba is notorious for such strategies. The Ecuadorian has already managed campaigns for right-wing businessmen Álvaro Noboa in Ecuador and Jorge Macri in Argentina. But it is also possible that various domestic and international interest groups are behind the smear campaigns.
Quiroga is internationally well-connected, for example, through the far-right Conservative Political Action Conference in the US, attended by figures like Elon Musk and Javier Milei. However, his connections extend beyond the right; as the one-time vice-president of the Club de Madrid, he interacted with former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), whose views often differ markedly from his own.
The very name of Quiroga’s LIBRE party, “Freedom and Republic”, distances itself from the concept of a plurinational Bolivia. Its focus is a “programme for economic salvation” that includes phasing out fuel subsidies, reducing bureaucracy through digitalization, cutting the budget deficit, lowering taxes to incentivize private investment, closing unprofitable state enterprises, and issuing public shares to make privatizations more palatable to the people.
After initially proposing the abolition of collective land ownership, Quiroga recently promised the independent indigenous organisation CIDOB that he would defend the integrity of indigenous territories and nature reserves, vowing to combat land invasions and forest fires decisively.
More Social Benefits with Less Revenue?
The “capitalism for all” promised by Rodrigo Paz goes hand in hand with criticism of the “Estado Tranca”, a government that obstructs people and the economy. Thus, tariffs and taxes are to be drastically reduced, and smuggled vehicles are to be legalized for a fee. “People can’t fully relate to Paz’s slogan of popular capitalism”, says Mario Rodríguez. “It’s more about the state not interfering with their businesses. Paz appeals to artisans, small businesspeople, and people in the transport sector. For many, it’s all about the informal economy — smuggling and avoiding taxes — in short, defending the survival strategies they rely on in the economic crisis. Paz seems less threatening in this respect.”
Paz claims that cutting fuel subsidies and tackling corruption will suffice to reduce the budget deficit and even finance new social transfers, such as income support for single mothers.
Whoever wins the run-off will be dependent on coalition partners in parliament and will have to make compromises.
As it stands, his main opponent seems to be his own running mate, Edman Lara, a former policeman who gained fame as a TikToker after speaking out against police corruption, which led to his dismissal and imprisonment. Although Rodrigo Paz faced widespread criticism for alleged corruption during his tenure as mayor of his hometown of Tarija, Lara still joined forces with him — despite corruption cases against Lara himself resurfacing just in time for the election.
Lara, who hails from the province of Cochabamba, was certainly a driving force in bringing the PDC to first place. But the very day after the election, he threatened to send Paz to prison if he proved to be corrupt and not keep his promises. Later, he also threatened the media outlets that criticized his conduct and compared him to Evo Morales. The run -off election had already been won, Lara claimed: if the electoral authority announces a different result, his supporters should not let this fraud stand. “He is nothing more and nothing less than a policeman”, is how feminist and activist Maria Galindo describes the candidate, calling him a “thug”. But it is precisely his style that brings him close to ordinary people. While this costs him votes in the middle class, it resonates more with the majority of the population, who struggle everyday to make ends meet, than the polished Jorge Quiroga does.
After the Run-off Comes the Regional Vote
Whoever wins the run-off will be dependent on coalition partners in parliament and will have to make compromises. And at the municipal elections planned for April 2026 at the latest, the electorate will have the opportunity to create new countervailing forces — especially if the presidential candidates keep their promise to decentralize the state and its revenues.
It is therefore to be expected that the MAS, which some observers had already written off, might once again take the lead in a number of municipalities — Evo Morales in his core region in the country’s interior, and elsewhere at least if the movement should prove capable of overcoming its authoritarianism and reconnecting with its base. This would also have the advantage of settling conflicts of interest through institutional channels rather than provoking ever more street confrontations, which have repeatedly caused deaths and significant economic damage in the past.
Translated by Diego Otero and Marty Hiatt for Gegensatz Translation Collective.