Turning over a new leaf: Bolivia’s age of Evo Morales is coming to an end

Доступно на русском

Bolivia’s rapid economic growth in recent years has given way to a severe crisis. Given his low approval ratings, current leftist president Luis Arce had no chance of reelection. Evo Morales, who led the country for 13 years — longer than any other Bolivian leader — was barred by the Constitutional Court from running.

The once-unshakable MAS leader and Kremlin ally is now hiding from arrest in the jungle, wanted on charges of raping a minor. He is being sheltered by loyal supporters — mostly coca farmers. Both right-wing presidential candidates have pledged that if elected, they will have Morales arrested and put on trial.

In one interview, frontrunner Jorge Quiroga called Morales a coward, saying, “His future lies in either a cold cell in The Hague or a warm hammock in Cuba” — meaning Morales will either face an international tribunal or flee to Cuba, helped by his old friend Raúl Castro.

For life, coca, and dignity

Evo Morales entered national politics in 1997, winning 70 percent of the vote in the central department of Cochabamba and becoming a member of parliament representing the new leftist party MAS (Movement for Socialism), which advocated for the rights of Bolivia’s Indigenous peoples and the country’s poorest citizens. Morales rose to prominence in the 1990s through his activism for cocaleros — farmers who grow coca bushes.

At the time, the Bolivian government, backed by the United States, was waging an aggressive anti-drug campaign aimed at eradicating coca cultivation. Morales and other activists defended the right to grow and chew coca leaves as a centuries-old tradition and an integral part of Indigenous cultural identity. Defending coca fields, Morales clashed repeatedly with police and the military. In 1994 he joined the “March for Life, Coca, and Dignity,” which saw protesters walk 600 kilometers from Cochabamba to the capital, La Paz.

In 2001-2002, Bolivia’s Chapare province, the main coca-growing region, was engulfed in protests. Ten cocaleros were killed, and at least 350 people were wounded or detained in clashes with security forces. According to a report by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), “On November 6, coca producers announced that they would block the highway between Santa Cruz and Cochabamba, the main road running through Chapare. In response, the Bolivian government deployed 2,000 soldiers and police officers.”

Morales, unsurprisingly, played an active role in those events. By the early 2000s, he had become the main leader of Bolivia’s opposition. In December 2005, he won the presidency with 53.74 percent of the vote, becoming the first head of state of Indigenous descent in the country’s 180 years of independence. A month later, Morales, an Aymara by ethnicity, crowned himself as the “supreme leader” of the Andean peoples in a symbolic ceremony amid the ruins of Tiwanaku.

For the next two decades, MAS remained Bolivia’s ruling party. Morales’s popularity, especially during his early years in office, was fueled by the so-called “Bolivian economic miracle.” Between 2006 and 2019, GDP grew by an average of 4.7 percent annually, poverty dropped from nearly 60 percent to 37 percent, and the share of Bolivians living in extreme poverty fell from 38 percent to 11 percent — all while annual inflation remained at a record-low 5.2 percent, rare for the region.

The driving force behind this economic boom was natural gas exports to Brazil and Argentina. Several major fields began production just before MAS came to power, and in May 2006, Morales nationalized the industry — just as he had promised to do during his campaign. Until 2019, natural gas remained Bolivia’s top export (followed by zinc and soy products), accounting for 54.8 percent of total exports and serving as the country’s main source of foreign currency.

Morales also ensured coca’s protection. Under the 2009 constitution, the plant was recognized as part of Bolivia’s “cultural heritage” and a “symbol of social unity.” The law allowed coca to be cultivated, sold, and used for traditional or ritual purposes while its use in cocaine production remained strictly banned.

In 2009, Morales famously chewed coca leaves during a session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, advocating that the plant be removed from the list of banned substances. “The coca leaf is not cocaine,” he said. “It is part of our culture. It is a traditional medicine that, in its natural form, harms no one.”

In reality, despite the ban, Bolivia remains the world’s third-largest cocaine exporter (after Colombia and Peru), accounting for 8 percent of global production. And the volume of Bolivian cocaine exports has continued to grow in recent years.

Throughout Morales’s presidency, the fight against drug trafficking was led by Felipe Cáceres, a former cocalero and Morales’s longtime ally, who served as deputy minister for social defense and controlled substances. In September 2025, Cáceres was arrested after police discovered a cocaine lab employing ten workers on his property in the tropical region of Cochabamba.

Morales’ four terms in power

In 2009, Morales easily won reelection with 64.22 percent of the vote. By law, he should have left office in 2014. Instead, he claimed that his first term did not count under the new constitution — “resetting” the clock, running again, and staying in power for an extra four years.

Then, in 2016, Morales tried to amend the constitution through a referendum that would have allowed him to run for office in 2018. This time, 51.3 percent of Bolivians voted against changing the term limits. Morales and MAS accepted the result but did not abandon their plan to keep him in power.

In 2017, Bolivia’s Constitutional Court ruled that limiting presidential reelection violated citizens’ “political rights,” which it equated to human rights, which stand above any national law. The ruling effectively legalized Morales’s bid to run for a fourth term in 2019. No Bolivian leader had remained in power that long since the country gained independence.

But the engine of Bolivia’s “economic miracle” was beginning to sputter. After peaking in 2014, natural gas production — the backbone of the country’s export economy — went into decline. Following the nationalization of the sector in 2006, the government had failed to invest in exploration or the development of new fields. Between 2014 and 2019, gas output dropped by a quarter, according to official data.

On Oct. 20, 2019, Bolivians went to the polls. Morales’s main challenger was journalist and former president Carlos Mesa (2003-2005), who ran with the Comunidad Ciudadana (Civic Community) alliance. With more than 80 percent of ballots counted, results indicated the two were headed for a runoff.

Then the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (OEP) abruptly suspended the count for 20 hours, citing “technical issues.” Under Bolivian law, a candidate needs only 45 percent — not 50 — to win outright in the first round. When counting resumed, the OEP announced that Morales had won with 47.08 percent of the vote.

According to the OEP, which was controlled by the ruling Movement for Socialism (MAS), Mesa received 36.5 percent. Observers from the Organization of American States and the European Union cited irregularities and a lack of transparency in the count. Mesa refused to concede, calling for protests with the declaration that, “I will either be arrested or become president.”

Opposition supporters felt doubly betrayed: first when Morales ignored their 2016 referendum rejecting indefinite reelection, and again when he appeared to manipulate the vote count. “If we’re not the people, then where are the people?!” demonstrators chanted. Morales insisted that “ordinary Bolivians” supported him and claimed that only oligarchs and foreign-funded groups stood against him. The MAS party denied all accusations against its leader while vowing “to defend democracy.” The efforts succeeded in mobilizing thousands of supporters to take to the streets.

Unrest erupted across the country. Protesters clashed with police, blocked roads, and stormed government buildings. Initially, the opposition demanded only a runoff vote, but soon they began calling for Morales to resign. In La Paz and other major cities, police began refusing orders to disperse crowds, and some even joined the demonstrations.

Fearing for his safety, Morales fled the capital. After several weeks of political chaos, he agreed to hold new elections, but it was too late. On Nov. 10, 2019, the president lost the support of the armed forces. Commander Gen. Williams Kaliman Romero publicly urged Morales to step down “for the peace and well-being of our Bolivia.”

Morales was forced to resign, albeit while refusing to admit to electoral fraud. He accused the opposition of staging a coup and vowed that “the struggle is not over.” He fled into exile, first to Mexico and later to Argentina.

No longer welcome

Protests and unrest in Bolivia continued until new presidential elections, which were delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. In November 2020, Luis Arce, the former economy minister and MAS candidate, won with 55 percent of the vote.

Throughout that time, despite Morales’s 2019 resignation, the Movement for Socialism retained its majority in both chambers of parliament. Morales congratulated his “brother” on the victory and prepared to return home. On Nov. 9, 2020, Argentina’s then-president Alberto Fernández personally escorted the exiled leader to the Bolivian border, where Morales made his triumphant return.

But not all of his allies were happy to see him. Arce, once seen as a technocrat and merely a placeholder candidate, soon showed that he intended to govern the country himself. He began challenging Morales’s leadership within the party, and the MAS began to fracture.

The “brothers” turned into bitter rivals, accusing each other of betrayal. Analysts described the split as MAS’s “political suicide.” Morales’s critics within the party argued that he had long exploited the grassroots movement to cling to power. Lawmakers and senators divided into two factions — the Evistas and the Arcistas. Morales moved into open opposition against the sitting president, returning to his 1990s-era tactics of marches and road blockades.

Meanwhile, Bolivia plunged into a deep economic crisis. The effects of the pandemic compounded longstanding structural problems, and natural gas production fell to early-2000s levels, leaving Arce’s government struggling to import essential goods, particularly fuel. The country now imports nearly 90 percent of its diesel and about 60 percent of its gasoline.

The situation was worsened by Bolivia’s 20-year-old system of fuel subsidies. Consumers buy diesel and gasoline at less than half of international market prices. In 2024, Arce’s government spent the equivalent of 3.6 percent of GDP on the program. Morales himself had tried to cut subsidies in 2010, but mass protests forced him to reverse the decree.

Now, Bolivia faces kilometer-long lines at gas stations. Truckers are often stranded for days waiting for diesel. In some regions, eight out of ten freight vehicles sit on the road due to fuel shortages. Inflation is rising fast — nearly 10 percent in 2024, and 18 percent between January and September 2025, the highest level in four decades. Prices of many food staples have doubled. Official statistics show that 36.5 percent of Bolivians now live below the poverty line, while independent studies estimate that 44 percent of the population cannot afford basic necessities.

Revolution in the jungle

After returning to Bolivia, Morales sought to exploit President Luis Arce’s economic failures to his advantage, accusing the government of incompetence and corruption and hinting that the president “should know what to do if he cannot govern properly.” In September 2024, Morales organized a march in La Paz “to save Bolivia.” Arce, in turn, accused Morales of attempting a coup.

By early 2025, it had become clear that neither Morales nor Arce would be able to run for president on behalf of the Movement for Socialism (MAS). Arce was politically disqualified due to his poor approval ratings (polls showed up to 80 percent of Bolivians were dissatisfied with his rule), while Morales was blocked by a Constitutional Court ruling that ran counter to the 2017 decision.

Morales had even more serious problems. During his presidency, Bolivia’s longest-serving leader had been accused at least five times of sexually abusing underage girls, but the scandals were always suppressed In October 2024, however, prosecutors opened a criminal case for the first time — and issued an arrest warrant. Morales was charged with statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl who became pregnant and gave birth to his daughter.

According to case materials, in 2014-2015, when Morales was 55, a “youth guard” was created for him, consisting of 14- and 15-year-olds. Among them was Cindy Vargas. “One of Morales’s bodyguards asked for my phone number. I was so young. I didn’t understand what was happening. Evo started talking to me. He insisted on meeting… After that meeting, I got pregnant,” Vargas said. In February 2016, she gave birth to a daughter. She said that for several years afterward, she was threatened and pressured into silence.

Morales escaped arrest by fleeing into the tropical Chapare province, where he is guarded by hundreds of loyal supporters, mostly cocalero farmers. For more than 20 days, they blocked roads in the region to prevent police from reaching him. The former president denies the charges, saying he fears that, if imprisoned, he would be poisoned or killed in a staged prison riot. From his jungle hideout, Morales called on supporters to spoil their ballots in the first round of the presidential election. The protest action “won” him 19 percent of the vote, which was good enough for a third-place finish, but not enough to reverse his political fortunes.

After the election, Bolivia faces a rightward turn, including a likely shift in foreign policy. Both Morales and Arce, like other leftist Latin American leaders since the 2000s, maintained close ties with the Kremlin. Even now, hiding in the jungle, Morales did not forget to send birthday wishes to Vladimir Putin: “We salute the most influential leader and strategist of world sovereignty, soul brother and fellow fighter,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

The Kremlin and lithium

Relations with Moscow under Bolivia’s new leadership are likely to change dramatically. Front-runner Jorge Quiroga has already pledged to review whether it makes sense for Bolivia to remain a “partner country” of the BRICS organization. The right-wing candidate said he hopes to strengthen ties with India, China, South Korea, the EU, and the United States while minimizing contact with Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. Quiroga also plans to request a loan from the International Monetary Fund to stabilize the economy. He has pledged to liberalize imports and slash state spending “following the Argentine scenario — with a chainsaw, a machete, scissors, whatever it takes.”

Christian Democrat Rodrigo Paz Pereira, meanwhile, said he would not increase Bolivia’s foreign debt: “I won’t ask the IMF for money. In Bolivia, if no one steals, there’s enough.” He has promised to cut import tariffs and launch an affordable credit program.

Both right-wing candidates are betting heavily on lithium. Bolivia holds the world’s largest lithium reserves, and the light metal is expected to eventually replace natural gas as the cornerstone of the country’s economy. Today, the world’s top producers and exporters are Australia and Chile, while La Paz, absent foreign investment, has struggled to develop large-scale extraction.

Moscow, like Beijing, has shown great interest in Bolivian lithium. Russia needs it for both civilian and military purposes: to produce rocket fuel, aluminum powder (a key component in making explosives), and lithium-ion batteries for drones.

In the final months of his presidency, Kremlin-aligned President Luis Arce and MAS lawmakers sought to fast-track parliamentary approval of a 2024 contract with Uranium One Group, Rosatom’s Bolivian subsidiary. The deal grants Russia rights to extract lithium in the Uyuni salt flats for at least 22 years and includes $970 million in Russian investment to build a plant capable of producing 14,000 tons of lithium carbonate annually. On Aug. 12, a MAS-controlled parliamentary committee approved the agreement, which must now go before both chambers of parliament.

The vote followed scuffles in parliament and protests both in the Potosí region, where the deposits are located, and in La Paz. Opposition parties, environmental groups, civic activists, and representatives of Indigenous communities accused the government of signing the contract with Moscow “behind closed doors,” calling it disadvantageous for Bolivia and environmentally dangerous for local residents.

“This contract won’t go through because the homeland rejects it. Some candidates are selling our lithium without even asking Bolivians for permission,” said Christian Democrat Rodrigo Paz Pereira. His rival Jorge Quiroga echoed the sentiment, calling the Rosatom deal “murky” and saying it was adopted without consulting Potosí residents. He vowed to cancel the agreement if it provokes protests in the region or is opposed by local authorities.