Recent protests in Bolivia have included roadblocks, including the one pictured from a social media account of former President Evo Morales.

Civil unrest continues to rise in Bolivia following statutory rape allegations against former President Evo Morales, which he denies, an alleged assassination attempt on the former president on October 27 and ongoing clashes in isolated regions between Morales’ supporters and military forces loyal to current President Luis Arce. Bolivia’s credit rating has declined in recent years, its monthly inflation rate is at a 14-year high and its foreign currency reserves are at a record low. How has civil unrest between Arce’s and Morales’ supporters affected Bolivia’s ongoing economic woes? How has the current conflict affected institutional stability and investor confidence in the long term? What avenues for de-escalation exist?

Robert Albro, research associate professor at the Center for Latin American & Latino Studies at American University: “Bolivia has almost exhausted its foreign cash reserves, its currency is devaluing, inflation is rising, and fuel shortages are crippling economic activity, sparking strikes and roadblocks. Criminal enterprise appears to be expanding, along with the country’s role as a cocaine producer and transit hub. Neighbors are bracing for a wave of desperate Bolivian migrants fleeing growing turmoil. With the end of last decade’s extractive boom, the country’s economic miracle is unraveling. Promised development boons, such as lithium mining, have not materialized. As Bolivia’s outlook becomes grimmer, throughout 2024 a rivalry between sitting President Luis Arce and former President Evo Morales for control of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) has become increasingly acrimonious while crises mount. Seeds of the current political stalemate were sown throughout the long Morales presidency, as he declined to cultivate and promote potential successors. His presidential run was only disrupted by the electoral coup of 2019. But Morales still maintains that he is a ‘historic’ figure and the only one to lead the country again. The rivalry has damaged the MAS, made governing Bolivia extremely difficult, and it has recently descended into surreal territory. Arce survived a June coup attempt, and Morales accused him of orchestrating a self-coup. Morales survived an October assassination attempt, and Arce accused him of staging it. This month, armed Morales supporters took military personnel loyal to the president hostage. Ordinary Bolivians are expressing deep political disillusionment, state institutions are being compromised in the process, and the future looks dark.”

Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network in Cochabamba, Bolivia: “Morales’ supporters lifted road blockades more than a week ago, after violent police interventions and grassroots requests. More than 100 protesters remain imprisoned without adequate legal defense. Police arrested prominent Indigenous leaders linked to Morales and plan to detain others. The economic crisis and chronic fuel shortages increasingly complicate daily life, leading to protests from consumers and transportation workers. Arce opened gasoline and diesel importation to private enterprise after more than a decade of significant subsidies and state control. Although the measure should increase availability, significantly higher prices will make the fuels inaccessible to citizens and worsen inflation. Arce’s divided, ineffectual cabinet with an empty treasury continues to improvise. It appears incapable of negotiation, dialogue or finding pragmatic solutions for widespread popular demands. Violent para-state groups which operated during the 2019 coup have reactivated and threaten human rights monitors, with no government response. The Constitutional Tribunal, which has illegally extended its own mandate, continues to impede long overdue judicial elections and appeases the government with repeated rulings that attempt to bar Morales’ presidential candidacy and remove him as MAS party leader, leading to further conflict. As polarization deepens, the right applauds Arce’s politically motivated crusade against Morales and his supporters. Without dialogue and significant concessions, a divided ruling party could facilitate a far-right win in 2025 or before, if these actors successfully lobby the Trump administration to back a power grab against the MAS government, as it did in 2019. In any case, it’s unclear whether Arce will be able to complete his term.”

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, Bolivia’s former minister of presidency, government and defense: “It is important to put the current situation in Bolivia into context. It is a country in which none of the essential elements of democracy established in Article 3 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter exist: ‘respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; access to power and its exercise subject to the rule of law; the holding of periodic, free, fair elections based on universal and secret suffrage as an expression of the sovereignty of the people; the plural regime of political parties and organizations; and the separation and independence of public powers.’ Today in Bolivia there are more than 300 political prisoners, there is no rule of law, and the conflict is between the ‘dictator-in-chief,’ Morales, and the ‘dictator-in-office,’ Arce. The supposed economic success of Morales/Arce was only the harvest of what was sown by Bolivian democracy between 1985 and 2003, bolstered by high commodity prices. The rest was developmentalism, over-indebtedness and corruption, the result of which is the ongoing crisis. The best example is the reduction of the gas power status that Bolivia held in 2003 to the country’s current status as an importer. The country is moving from poverty to misery as a satellite dictatorship of Cuba and Venezuela. The only possible solution is a return to democracy, which means restoring the rule of law and having a judiciary that is not subordinate to the regime, in order to guarantee free and fair elections.”

Diego von Vacano, professor of political science at Texas A&M University and fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center: “The civil unrest in Bolivia isn’t the cause of the country’s economic woes—it is merely a symptom of its deep crisis. While it is true that the road blockades organized by Evo Morales’ followers have generated serious economic losses for average Bolivians, they are the result of the intransigence of the Arce government with regard to potential dialogue with Morales, the head of the MAS party. An intra-party dialogue would diminish the conflict and lead the way to national stability, but Arce has been adamant in not wanting to engage the former president. Arce’s government is arguably the most ineffective since the country’s return to democracy in 1982 because it has wasted a huge amount of political capital. Arce needlessly entered into a war with Morales and has done practically nothing to allay the economic crisis due to the decline of natural gas, the lack of dollars and now the dearth of fuel. There is practically no investor confidence as a result of this, especially in the dormant lithium sector. If Arce were to open dialogue, or if Senator Andrónico Rodríguez were given a more prominent role to mediate, tensions could be eased.”

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