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Is Bolivia really witnessing popular revolt, as Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro has suggested? Or are the extensive demonstrations and road blockades, which are now in their sixth week, actually part of a coup attempt orchestrated by left-wing politician Evo Morales and financed by the nation’s drug barons, as the ruling centre-right government is claiming?
“The key point of contention has been how to counter the economic crisis”, explains social scientist Huascar Salazar from the Centro de Estudios Económicos Sociales Populares (CEESP), one of the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung’s partner organizations, located in Cochabamba. “During his election campaign, Rodrigo Paz repeatedly promised that his policies wouldn’t negatively impact the poorer parts of the population. He vowed not to increase fares for public transport, said he wouldn’t enter into negotiations with the International Monetary Fund… But virtually as soon as he took office, he backtracked.” Instead, Salazar points out, the Paz government has provided relief for the banking sector, which registered record profits in the previous financial year, and made concessions to the agricultural industry. “That was the catalyst for the first wave of protests organized by Indigenous communities”, explains Salazar.
Bolivia's Economic Crisis: Broken Promises
Bolivia’s government was able to at least resolve the nation’s balance of payments crisis in the short term by borrowing extensively, and thereby curb the rise in inflation. The lowering of import duties benefited not only the trade sector, but also people looking to buy products like mobile phones, kitchen appliances, and agricultural machinery. Additional payments were made to particularly poor families, and the decision to raise the mandatory minimum wage helped offset the costs incurred by December’s diesel and petrol price hike. Following several years of supply shortages, the scrapping of subsidies helped secure supplies in the short term and dry up the black market.
But the fuel was of poor quality. This antagonized the transport industry, and the government was forced to pay millions in compensation for engine damage. And while some people expressed criticism at the share of the scarcely reduced national budget devoted to wages, the teachers’ union (FECODE) mobilized to protest the government’s moratorium on pay increases in the face of ongoing high inflation.
At the same time, despite its austerity rhetoric, the government abolished taxes on substantial financial and material assets, which only intensified the criticism — coming especially from poorer sections of the population — that their elected president was primarily governing in the interests of the rich. Even a later commitment by the president and his cabinet to reduce their own salaries by half could do nothing to ease tensions.
They’re now responding to the crisis, but without any idea what they want to achieve and no strategy for achieving it.
A law allowing small-scale farmers to register themselves as agribusinesses and mortgage their previously protected land was repealed following a weeks-long protest march on La Paz. However, the trade union confederation Central Obrera Boliviana (Bolivian Workers’ Center, COB) was already on the streets protesting against the impending closures and privatization of unprofitable state-owned companies, which are consuming a vast portion of the federal budget. The number of blockades affecting highways and the urban area of El Alto increased. Even though these grassroots organizations “still have some clout”, as Salazar admits, their co-optation by the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement for Socialism, MAS) has significantly undermined them over the past 20 years.
“They’re now responding to the crisis, but without any idea what they want to achieve and no strategy for achieving it. This has made things all the easier for organizations like mining co-ops to get involved in the protests, champion their own interests, and win concessions — like no longer having to make contributions to the social security system. And then there’s Evo Morales, whose supporters had previously organized weeks-long street blockades back in 2024 and 2025 in an unsuccessful attempt to secure his presidential candidacy by force. These supporters are now calling for new elections. This is where the problems began when it came to getting the legitimate demands voiced during the first weeks of protest met, and finding a solution to the conflict. There is not currently a base broad enough to compel Rodrigo Paz to resign from office. The Aymara people in the Altiplano have always been very well organized. But they don’t necessarily agree with Evo Morales’s views or demands, such as the selective road blockades in other parts of the country. Unlike past protest movements, we have seen no widespread participation in these latest blockades”, explains Salazar.
Food Shortages and Roadblocks Paralyze Cities
Those who are suffering most from this situation belong to the popular classes, in whose name the protests are being waged: the thousands of truck drivers who have been stuck for weeks between Cochabamba and La Paz; farming families who are unable to bring their produce to market; taxi and bus drivers who are unable to work and therefore cannot repay their loans; street vendors who are unable to make an income to support their families and are living from hand to mouth. Meat, eggs, and vegetables are becoming scarce because food and medicines can no longer be transported into the cities. Prices have doubled and in some cases tripled. Lengthy queues have gathered at state-run outlets that receive deliveries of chicken via airlift and sell it at a subsidized price. The mayor of El Alto puts the estimated economic losses sustained by his city thus far at the equivalent of €200 million.
Meat, eggs, and vegetables are becoming scarce because food and medicines can no longer be transported into the cities. Prices have doubled and in some cases tripled.
What’s more, several deaths have once again been recorded due to ambulances not being allowed to pass the road blockades quickly enough. Threats made by various companies to relocate their operations to Santa Cruz, a city virtually unaffected by the blockades, is also likely to worry workers in El Alto and La Paz in particular. In the last two decades, the number of jobs subject to mandatory social insurance contributions has already declined, and job prospects for young people have worsened. The ongoing unrest has also shattered fragile hopes that an economic rebound would follow the change of government.
Crackdown or Dialogue: President Paz's Dilemma
President Rodrigo Paz Pereira is caught between the two sides and is still counting on the protests abating and negotiations taking place. With an administrative decree suspending interest payments on bank loans and by soliciting food donations from overseas, the government is trying to soften the blow of the crisis and buy itself more time. This is also motivated in part by historical evidence — such as the Bolivian Water War and Bolivian Gas War of the early 2000s — that violent confrontations could exacerbate the conflicts and intensify the protests.
But it is no longer solely the Comité Cívico of Santa Cruz, the umbrella organization representing the city’s various business and civil society organizations, and opposition leader Jorge Tuto Quiroga who are calling on the government to take drastic measures to end the blockades. Paz was not elected so he could stand on his soapbox and deliver empty rhetoric, but to take action, argues Quiroga. With this in mind, Bolivia’s parliament fast-tracked changes to the legislation regulating a potential state of emergency. At a demonstration, the retail workers’ and artisans’ association criticized the trade union confederation for the inability of 80 percent of the production chain in La Paz to continue operations. In the Yungas in the lowlands of La Paz, mayors and local residents have taken matters into their own hands, using negotiations and the exertion of political pressure to break up the roadblocks there. In parts of El Alto, neighbourhood committees have been formed in order to ensure that the roads in their area remain open.
Some Aymara people from village communities in the highlands are finding ways — as they did in the colonial period — to smuggle their wares past the road blockades by taking long journeys on foot. Statements in favour of and — increasingly — against the blockades are spreading online. Some express concern about the arrests and mistreatment of blockaders by police, while others allege that they are being pressured to take part in the blockades by neighbourhood or village authorities. “The online media and social networks can be incredibly polarizing”, Salazar points out, “and the mainstream media is also very one-sided in its reporting.” While Kawsachun Coca, the coca growers’ radio station, is saying that the government is about to be toppled, Bolivia’s biggest daily newspaper El Deber is talking solely of “narcoterrorism”.
It is likely only a matter of time before the neighbouring communities resume their protests against the government for its failure to maintain the roads.
The transportation sector, the farmers’ association, which is closely affiliated with the regional government of the neighbouring department of Oruro, and the representative organization of the Indigenous people of the lowlands, the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia (CIDOB), have also shown little sympathy for the blockades — nor for the fact that coca growers in the department of Chapare have occupied not only the airport, but also the local military barracks. Blockaders not only showed up with weapons, but also shot at police officers when they tried to break up a blockade in San Julián.
Violent groups on the right of the political spectrum, such as the Resistencia Cochala or the Union Juvenil Cruceñista, have thus far been appeased with promises that a solution will be found by way of negotiation. Teachers have been placated with a one-off special payment. However, the promise made by the government to the gold mining cooperatives of a partial waiver of environmental audits and greater access to conservation areas has opened up another line of conflict with environmental activist groups.
But the resulting protests have had limited success thus far. After all, unlike the mine workers, they refuse to set off explosives in the centre of the city. Nor are they willing to dig trenches in the asphalt to hamper vehicles on the plateau roads. Instead, it is likely only a matter of time before the neighbouring communities resume their protests against the government for its failure to maintain the roads. Better access to rural communities is in fact one of the demands made by the Aymara communities located between La Paz and Lake Titicaca. And in all likelihood it will ultimately be not the poorest but the most radical groups whose demands are met, the cost of which will then have to be borne by the general public.
Why New Elections Won't End Bolivia's Crisis
Nevertheless, the trade union confederation and the coca farmers who support Evo Morales categorically reject negotiations unless the “incompetent” and “repressive” president steps down. However, it is not clear that a new round of elections, like those held in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, would return the elites from organizations affiliated with Evo Morales — or even the MAS — to power.
President Paz has criticized trade union leader Mario Argollo, saying that Argollo earns considerably more than he does as president, and Evo Morales, who he claims is only interested in shielding himself from ongoing criminal investigations. These criticisms are certainly resonating with the public. Claims that the protests are being financed by the drug trade are supported by the fact that the equivalent of just over half a million euros have so far been seized during police checks from people who were travelling to the road blockades and had passes issued by the cocaleros, the coca farmers.
The grassroots organizations need to think seriously about how the conflict might be de-escalated and what a long-term strategy might look like.
Despite the Che Guevara outfits sported by some of the protesters and their claims that they are the sole mouthpiece of the people, in the event of new elections, their frustration with the incumbent government may well lead the majority of them to vote in favour of more radical, more right-wing candidates. This would enable a comeback for precisely those economic elites who had been forced to put their hopes and aspirations temporarily on hold due to the widespread discontent in neighbourhoods and villages over the social problems caused by Pereira’s policies.
Huascar Salazar sums up his fears: “With the recent bolstering of laws pertaining to the state of emergency and the increasingly frequent references to the military in Paz’s speeches, I’m worried that the government, in coordination with the USA, could pursue a militaristic strategy of social control, similar to what we’ve seen in Mexico or Ecuador.” Honest dialogue is needed here, he says. However, civil society rarely has an opportunity to initiate such discussions. “The negotiations between the government and parallel organizations have accomplished relatively little thus far. But if the current government were to step down, the danger is that another group would simply step in to replace it, and this could ultimately jeopardize even the concessions made so far. The grassroots organizations need to think seriously about how the conflict might be de-escalated and what a long-term strategy might look like. Evo Morales won’t want to negotiate. But he is by no means the only driving force behind these protests. What matters more is all the other people, especially at the lowest levels of social organizations, who are suffering as a result of the current situation, but have no clear roadmap for how to overcome the crisis. There’s no doubt that the government supports the oligarchy in Santa Cruz, but it’s also true that the state is bankrupt. This is another area where the left also needs to come up with its own plans and strategies, instead of just demanding that this, that, or the other be financed by the state.”
[Translated by Louise Pain and Marc Hiatt for Gegensatz Translation Collective.]
