Bolivia braces for tense elections as ruling party implodes

“Instead of counting votes, they will count bodies.” This threat was made by Ruth Nina, head of Bolivia's National Action Party (Pan-Bol), if Evo Morales were not allowed to run as her party’s presidential candidate in the 17 August presidential elections.¹ Morales has tried in multiple ways to evade a constitutional ban to run again, including using the Pan-Bol platform, but the Supreme Electoral Tribunal impeded this maneuver by revoking the party’s legal status in June.² 

Nina's words — articulated at a gathering of supporters of the former president in Cochabamba on 12 July — were particularly shocking, as they came a few weeks after clashes between security forces and Morales supporters left four police officers and four demonstrators dead, as well as dozens injured. This was the latest and most violent episode of a struggle within the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party, which has dominated the country’s politics in the past two decades. The protagonists of this rift have been Morales, who founded the movement and led the country from 2006 to 2019, and his former finance minister, current President Luis Arce. This dispute has led to the implosion of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party, contributed to aggravating an already complex economic situation, and risks sparking further unrest around an election that could be defined in a runoff on 19 October.

The Morales-Arce dispute and MAS’s implosion

The roots of the conflict within the MAS party can be traced back to the 2019 elections, when Morales was suspected of resorting to fraudulent means to secure a victory in the first round. The allegations sparked a post-electoral crisis that led him to resign and flee the country. Tensions continued even after Arce won the 2020 elections and allowed Morales back into the country, as the latter’s despotic management of candidacies in the 2021 local elections sparked growing discontent within the party. 

The distance between Arce and Morales grew progressively,³ but it reached a point of no return when Morales announced he would run for the presidency in September 2023.⁴ This prompted a series of legal challenges for the control of MAS and satellite social movements. Arce has the upper hand in the courts and retains formal control of the party. He has also presented Eduardo del Castillo, his minister of the interior, as the party’s presidential candidate.⁵ However, Morales has flexed his social mobilization muscles, particularly around specific points of inflection (see graph below): In January 2024, shortly after the Constitutional Court banned him from running for president after reaching his term limits; in October 2024, when prosecutors charged him with statutory rape; and in May and June 2025, when the Electoral Tribunal disqualified the alternative platforms he had tried to run for, including Pan-Bol.⁶ Nearly 30% of the over 2,600 demonstrations ACLED records between October 2023 and July 2025 revolved around this intra-MAS struggle.

The dispute has also resulted in the fragmentation of the social movements that have supported MAS over the past two decades. Morales lost the support of the Bolivian Workers’ Center (COB) — the main trade union federation in the country — which has sided with Arce and recently accused Morales of promoting an armed insurrection that employs “terrorist” methods.⁷ Similarly, most mining cooperatives have also turned their backs on Morales, but some of them have detached altogether from MAS to support the presidential candidacy of Andrónico Rodríguez, a former Morales protégé who parted ways with MAS to run for the Popular Alliance party coalition.⁸ 

This has left Morales with a “reduced but radicalized” support base, in the words of a political analyst,⁹ pointing to the fact that the supporters who remain have been eager to engage in deadly violence to defend Morales’ cause. This base is rooted in the central Cochabamba department, Morales’ longtime parliamentary constituency, where the former president has taken refuge from the attorney general’s arrest warrant against him.¹⁰ Indeed, almost 60% of pro-Morales demonstrations since October 2023 have taken place in Cochabamba (see map below). Farmers, including some of the coca leaf producers organized under the Unified Syndical Confederation of Peasant Workers of Bolivia, once affiliated with COB, have also continued demonstrating in support of Morales in parts of Oruro, Chuquisaca, and Santa Cruz. 

The blockades that damaged the economy and fueled the conflict 

The Morales-Arce dispute has also exacerbated a precarious economic situation. The struggle between the two has caused an impasse in the legislature since at least August 2023, when Morales-affiliated deputies started blocking legal initiatives, including loan approvals, in the legislative assembly.¹¹ This, coupled with the production of gas taking a nosedive due to a lack of investment and increasing domestic demand, has dried out the central bank’s dollar reserves that it needs to pay out rising imports of fossil fuels and strained the government’s ability to maintain fuel subsidies.¹² 

Morales supporters’ mobilizations have added to this economic stress. Almost nine in every 10 pro-Morales demonstrations have involved roadblocks, sometimes held for weeks. The fact that most took place in Cochabamba (see map below) — an essential intersection for the flow of goods in the country — maximized their impact, causing severe fuel shortages and making food prices spike.¹³ As a result, economic concerns have become the main driver of unrest, according to Fundación UNIR Bolivia, a conflict analysis organization.¹⁴ The data bears this out: ACLED records over 550 protests against fuel and dollar shortages — spearheaded by public transport and cargo drivers — and rising food prices since October 2023. 

While Morales hoped that the economic discontent would play into his anti-government campaign, the prolonged blockades have instead prompted rejection from a growing number of Bolivians.¹⁵ Opposition to pro-Morales roadblocks has driven many of the over 30 events of violence between Morales’ supporters and Arce sympathizers or other residents recorded since October 2023. Also, it was precisely the growing public demand for action that prompted Arce to deploy security forces to clear the roads in June. This led to the most lethal clashes between security forces and demonstrators since November 2019, when security forces cracked down on MAS supporters protesting the installation of Jeanine Áñez’s interim government after Morales’ resignation, leaving 26 people dead.

The risk of prolonged unrest

The chances that Morales will be allowed to run for the presidency are all but null at this point. But his reluctance to accept the exclusion could prompt his support base to not only promote a null vote,¹⁶ but also actively obstruct an electoral process it considers illegitimate. While mobilizations fell significantly after June’s deadly confrontations, the risk of further escalation persists. This could take the shape of attacks against polling stations and electoral personnel or a renewed round of protests, roadblocks, and clashes with current or former MAS supporters — particularly around the Cochabamba department. Morales supporters have already stormed Del Castillo’s and Rodríguez’s campaign events in Caravani and Villa Yacapaní, respectively. However, any attempt to disrupt the election is likely to be rejected by most Bolivians, who have coalesced around the idea that this election will solve the country’s political crisis.¹⁷ This risks fueling further clashes between security forces and pro-Morales demonstrators.

Election-related turmoil could extend well beyond election day. In fact, this election may have a runoff on 19 October, for the first time in the country’s history. The spat between Morales and Arce has revitalized more conservative opposition forces. But polls show that none of three main contenders — Samuel Doria Medina of the center-right National Unity Front; Jorge Quiroga of the right-wing Freedom and Democracy alliance; and Rodríguez, who is pulling part of the MAS electorate into his Popular Alliance party — is close to the over 50% of votes needed to win in the first round.¹⁸ MAS candidate Del Castillo is polling below the 3% threshold, which would imply the legal cancellation of the party.

Regardless of who becomes the new Bolivian president, social and political tensions are likely to persist well beyond this electoral cycle. The dire economic situation and growing popular needs will continue to drive mobilizations, and Morales will likely continue to mobilize his supporters to position himself as an unavoidable political interlocutor and the key representative of the left.¹⁹ In any case, the election could mark the end of MAS’s two-decade-long ruling model and bring a seismic shift in the country’s political, economic, and social realms.

Correction: The word “mobilizations” replaced “such activity” in the first paragraph of the final section to clarify that sentence.

Correction | 15 August 2025: A previous version of this report referred to “an election that could be defined in a runoff on 20 October." This report has been corrected to indicate that the runoff will be on 19 October, not 20 October.

Visuals produced by Ana Marco