Over the past year, Bolivia has experienced disruptive protests throughout the country. These protests have been driven by a brewing economic crisis and political division, culminating in an attempted coup on 26 June 2024. During the coup attempt, troops marched on the presidential palace led by disgruntled former army chief Juan José Zúñiga who had been dismissed the day prior for criticising former President Evo Morales. Although the coup was quashed within three hours, the incident highlights entrenched disunity within the ruling party, and in the country. Yet, opposition parties have so far failed to capitalise on this political dysfunction, suggesting few alternative possibilities ahead of the August 2025 election.

Divisions within the ruling party

Political division runs deep within the ruling Movimiento al Socialismo party (Movement for Socialism, MAS). In the wake of the coup attempt, Zúñiga has made unevidenced claims that he was commissioned by Arce to stage a coup to increase the president’s dwindling popularity (with a 38 percent approval rating as of March 2024). Regardless of their veracity, such claims threaten the credibility of Arce’s already fragile government. Arce assumed the presidency after achieving a landslide victory in the 2020 election, but subsequent division within the party has seen Arce lose his majority in Congress, impeding his ability to introduce policies to improve the economy. Division within MAS has grown further since September 2023, when Morales announced his candidacy for the 2025 election. His bid for the presidency both defied a Constitutional Court ruling prohibiting him from serving a fourth term and openly challenged Arce, who was already expected to run for re-election and seek the MAS party’s nomination. Despite being ousted in 2019 over allegedly fraudulent elections, Morales remains popular with indigenous communities, coca growers and union workers, and continues to galvanise supporters by pointing to the country’s faltering economy under Arce.

A worsening economic crisis

The economy has indeed faltered. Despite experiencing some of the fastest economic growth on the continent two decades ago, minimal private investment, increases in public debt, a decline in currency reserves, and a commodity-dependent economy have weakened the country’s financial stability. The largest contributor is the drop in natural gas production. The government has failed to invest in and promote exploration or processing plants, and as a result, existing gas and oil fields have been depleted and production has plunged. The impact on the country’s reserves is already apparent, and at the end of 2023, Bolivia’s central bank had USD 1.7 billion in reserves, a decline from a peak of USD 15.5 billion in 2014. Without this revenue, the country is struggling to procure the US dollars necessary to purchase fuel and other imports to meet the country’s demands. Consequently, Bolivia’s external public debt with multilateral and bilateral creditors now amounts to USD 13 billion, a 12 percent increase since 2020. Additionally, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted a GDP growth rate of only around 1.6 percent in 2024, down from 2.4 percent growth in 2023.

Arce’s attempts to introduce measures to ease the crisis have so far been thwarted by Morales’s allies in Congress. For example, Arce has procured around USD 600 million in multilateral loans to relieve the pressure, but Morales’s faction continues to block approval of these loans. Additionally, although Bolivia has an estimated 21 million tonnes of lithium reserves, among the most abundant in the world, lawmakers have refused to give Arce approval to allow foreign companies to extract it. The ongoing gridlock and its deleterious impacts on the economy have understandably contributed to growing public dissatisfaction.

A country protests

Over the past year, costly, drawn-out demonstrations have increased significantly in Bolivia. Many of the demonstrations have occurred in response to calls to mobilise from either Arce or Morales. The latter demonstrations have also overlapped with those triggered by the shortage of US dollars and fuel, with Morales leveraging these issues to mobilise his supporters. The unrest has manifested as blockades of highways around the country, often lasting several days, causing severe travel and commercial disruptions and resulting in clashes between protesters and police. In January 2024, consecutive days of blockades paralysed multiple parts of the country, with disruptions to the transportation of basic goods prompting food shortages in several major cities, including La Paz and Oruro.

In the wake of the coup, Arce looks unable to defuse party tensions or regain a majority in Congress, and subsequently improvements to the economic situation are unlikely in the near future. However, opposition groups remain divided into multiple parties and have so far struggled to unite and mount significant opposition to MAS rule. As the courts continue to prohibit Morales from running for a fourth term in office, Arce remains likely to maintain the upper hand. At the same time, Morales maintains significant support among the people and within Congress. In this context of deep-set intraparty tensions within MAS, few signs point to improvements to the political or economic situation in Bolivia, further entrenching the conditions for widespread social unrest.