Bolivia is repeating the script of electoral state terrorism seen in Nicaragua and Venezuela

By: Carlos Sánchez Berzaín - 10/07/2026

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Fabricated accusations based on falsified evidence, and prosecutors and judges acting as hitmen in manipulated legal proceedings designed to persecute, imprison, exile, or eliminate individuals are some of the means of state terrorism used by the dictatorships of 21st-century socialism or Castro-Chavismo to disqualify genuine opponents. They did so in Nicaragua in 2021, in Venezuela in 2024, and now they are repeating this electoral state terrorism in Bolivia for the general elections of August 17, 2025.

The 21st-century socialist dictatorships in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia hold periodic elections that are neither free nor fair, are not based on universal and secret suffrage, and are not intended to express popular sovereignty, but rather to perpetuate the regime under the guise of democracy. They violate all the essential elements of democracy enshrined in Article 3 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter and the human rights established in Articles 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 20, 23, 24, and 25 of the American Convention on Human Rights.

That is why Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia are “electoral dictatorships where the people vote, but do not choose,” because they hold elections without freedom, without the rule of law, without separation or independence of powers, without free political organization, and with political prisoners, exiles, and those persecuted. In these countries without democracy, nothing guarantees either freedom or human rights.

Furthermore, they construct and maintain the "functional opposition," comprised of politicians, groups, and parties that feign opposition to the regime and act to create the appearance of democracy. The functional opposition is part of the dictatorship because it participates in corruption and impunity, simulates legality in puppet legislative bodies, endorses human rights violations, the existence of political prisoners and exiles, and more.

Four months before the 2025 general elections in Bolivia, the electoral dictatorship system is in full operation: 1. The electoral register is the same one proven to have been falsified by the fraud of 2019 and previous years, and by Rosario Baptista, who resigned “denouncing that it is not possible to continue in an Electoral Body that is neither independent nor impartial,” adding that “beyond the 2019 elections, in the 2020 electoral process the true results and mandatory principles of respect for human rights were ignored, subjecting the citizenry to the will of the political party (the MAS of the regime), which under the current conditions will never lose an election”; 2. In Bolivia there are 303 political prisoners certified by the Global Human Rights League (www.ghrl.org), and the same entity proves that “10,255 Bolivian citizens have filed applications for political asylum in 29 countries.” Among the political prisoners are former president Jeanine Añez and several members of her government, the Governor of Santa Cruz, Luis F. Camacho, the civic leader from Potosí, Marco Antonio Pumari, the human rights activist Fernando Hamdan, and others; 3. Prosecutors and judges are instruments of the regime who apply the methodology used in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua of prosecuting, imprisoning, and sentencing innocent people, forcing them in many cases to admit to crimes they did not commit in order to obtain “abbreviated trials with lenient sentences.” Justice is the repressive instrument of the 21st-century socialist dictatorships, and every file of the political prisoners and those persecuted proves it.

Of course, in the coup d'état staged on June 26, 2014, Bolivia had more political prisoners and those persecuted, but now, during the electoral process, the case is being used again with a documentary video produced by the regime to implicate more people, including political analysts and independent presidential candidate Jaime Dunn. They have launched a campaign to persecute and disqualify anyone they believe could be a genuine opponent.

For the November 7, 2021 elections in Nicaragua, the regime imprisoned at least seven opposition presidential candidates, dozens of legislative candidates, disqualified several others, and forced others into exile. Pure state terrorism. After carrying out the fraudulent election, the dictatorship exiled and stripped of their citizenship 222 political prisoners and continues to hold power.

For the July 28, 2024 elections in Venezuela, the regime disqualified candidate María Corina Machado, who had won the opposition primary with 92.35% of the vote. They then disqualified Corina Yoris, whom Machado presented as her replacement, and finally Machado nominated Edmundo González Urrutia, who won the election with over 67% of the vote. The dictatorship employed state terrorism from beginning to end and continues to usurp power with a criminal/military occupation group.

Bolivia, under electoral state terrorism —with a social, economic and energy crisis that leads it to the misery of Cuba and Venezuela— still exhibits its dictatorship/narco-state as a democracy that will have elections.

*Lawyer and Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy

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