Bolivia: The defeat of Evo Morales

By: Luis Gonzales Posada - 22/08/2025

After 20 years of hegemony, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), Evo Morales' political party, has suffered a catastrophic electoral defeat, winning only one seat in the 130-seat Chamber of Deputies and no representatives in the 60-seat Senate.

The defeat is shared with President Arce, whose government shows a runaway annual inflation of 25% (1.69% in Peru) and the dramatic fall of the net international reserves (NIR) from US$15,137 to US$166 (in our country the reserves climb US$87,130)

Because of this, they have no foreign currency to import goods and services; there are also no dollars to buy fuel, and truckers have to wait in long lines at the pumps, sometimes for two days.

All of this is happening despite the fact that Bolivia has large gas reserves, which have experienced a drastic decline of 37% in recent years due to the country's irresponsible failure to invest in hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation, and exports have fallen from 54% to 18.8%.

The same is true of lithium, a product used in electric vehicle batteries and electronic devices. Bolivia has immense deposits of this strategic mineral, estimated at 21 million cubic tons, but they remain unextracted due to a lack of resources and technology.

In this context, it's easy to understand the results of the recent elections, where the Christian Democratic candidate, Rodrigo Paz Pereira, obtained 32.2% of the vote and former President Jorge Quiroga, 26.8%. Both candidates will face off in a runoff scheduled for October 19. The winner will be the one who capitalizes on the 20% obtained by center-right candidate Samuel Doria Medina, who has already announced his support for Paz Pereira.

We share historical ties with Bolivia. We were once part of the same nation and shared a 1,047-kilometer border. We are also members—with Colombia and Ecuador—of the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), among other multilateral organizations.

Without a doubt, the new regime installed in the highland nation will abandon statist economic policies and move toward a market economy, while simultaneously breaking its anti-democratic ties to the 21st-century socialist bloc, comprised of Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela, with shady pacts with Iran, Russia, and the terrorist sect Hezbollah.

Morales finds himself, like a caged beast, in the coca-growing area of El Chapare, Cochabamba, cowardly evading a court order for his arrest for raping a 15-year-old girl, with whom he had a daughter.

But despite remaining hidden, he remains an extremely dangerous individual. Recall, for example, that when he lost the 2018 elections, he attempted to overturn the result by claiming electoral fraud, sparking violent protests that included roadblocks and attacks on police forces. He ultimately had to seek asylum in the Mexican embassy, protected by López Obrador, and from there, he ended up in Argentina, protected by Cristina Kirchner and Alberto Fernández, from where he issued directives to his supporters to prevent the entry of food into major cities, especially La Paz.

Now he threatens uprisings, and his supporters say that in the second round, the Electoral Tribunal and the government, "instead of counting votes, will count the dead."

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