Corruption and poverty, the results of two decades of dictatorship in Bolivia
By: Hugo Marcelo Balderrama - 29/06/2025
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At the beginning of the 21st century, all Latin American countries, in general, and Bolivia in particular, experienced tragic episodes, as violent groups took to the streets and highways with a single slogan: change.
The attack on our nations came on at least three fronts: 1) The creation of a narrative that portrayed presidents like Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and Jamil Mahuad as heads of oppressive governments that discriminate against the poor. 2) Subversion and extreme violence disguised as social protests. 3) The manipulation of information by social media operators.
Experience reveals how seemingly progressive movements are, in reality, the selfish interests of bandits who exploit chaos, emancipatory rhetoric, and popular fervor to consolidate power, enrich themselves, or implement new forms of oppression. For example, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, Rafael Correa, and Evo Morales. Let's be honest, you'd have to be very naive to continue thinking that the dictators of 21st-century socialism are politicians.
Furthermore, dictatorships brought several apocalyptic plagues: poverty, insecurity, disinvestment, and corruption. For example, the World Justice Project (WJP), an international organization whose mission is to promote the rule of law, determined that our country ranks last out of 32 countries in the region, while globally it is ranked 141st out of 142 nations evaluated. In other words, we are the most corrupt country in Latin America and the second most corrupt in the world.
The report's methodology uses eight measurement factors, but the one with the greatest weight in Bolivia's case is the one related to the administration of justice. The examination measures whether judges and judicial officials refrain from soliciting and accepting bribes to fulfill their duties or expedite proceedings, and whether the judiciary and its decisions are free from undue influence from the government, private interests, and criminal organizations.
It also examines whether police officers and criminal investigators refrain from soliciting and accepting bribes to perform basic police services or investigate crimes, and whether government officials in the police and military are free from undue influence by private interests or criminal organizations.
Finally, it measures whether members of the legislature refrain from soliciting or accepting bribes or other incentives in exchange for political favors or favorable votes on legislation.
WJP explains that this factor evaluates the effectiveness of a country's criminal justice system, taking into account that it is a mechanism for redressing grievances and prosecuting individuals for crimes against society. With such poor results, any explanation is unnecessary.
Consider how serious this matter is: corruption is so widespread that bribes are required even for the simplest things. For example, delivering a claim to the other party in a trial. That's right, if the judicial official doesn't receive your "affection," it's impossible for them to accomplish something as basic as their job, for which Bolivians pay them a salary. In fact, those of us who have had the bad experience of litigating in court proceedings always receive the same advice: "everything is done with money."
In conclusion, the only real, credible, and necessary offer is to dismantle the entire system of infamous laws and corruption mechanisms that threaten the lives, property, and freedom of Bolivians, since everything else falls on deaf ears, even the good intentions of obtaining dollars in a few weeks.
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