Salutations from a Missouri cave, a California beach and a Washington, DC rock. Roberta is taking a short break, so the junior editors are stepping in. This week, we are bringing you the latest on Bolivia’s presidential runoff and the storm of issues that followed the vote. While ballots have been counted, domestic issues are just stirring up.

Election results

On October 19, centrist candidate Rodrigo Paz won the Bolivian presidential election in a runoff victory. This marks the end of nearly 20 years of uninterrupted leftist rule in the country. Evo Morales was the most recent left-wing officeholder, and he was ousted in a 2019 coup, after facing accusations of election fraud, human trafficking and corruption. However, many citizens seem eager to forget. Paz promises to preserve popular social programs while opening the economy to greater private-sector investment and strengthening ties with the US.

Rodrigo Paz

Voter fatigue with the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) coalition grew as the party struggled to address mounting social grievances. The combination of waning confidence in MAS’s governance and a desire for fresh leadership opened space for a centrist contender to capture the electorate’s attention in the runoff.

At the same time, Bolivia is grappling with its deepest economic downturn in decades. Inflation hovers near 25 %, foreign‑exchange reserves — largely held in US dollars and essential for backing the boliviano — have sharply contracted, and persistent fuel shortages are pushing prices higher and fueling public discontent.

Evo Morales and his supporters have launched a voto nulo (“null‑vote”) campaign, urging voters to reject both runoff candidates. Meanwhile, the vice‑presidential debate between Edman Lara (Paz) and Juan Pablo Velasco (Quiroga) descended into personal attacks and yielded few substantive policy proposals. International observers — including an EU Election Observation Mission — have been deployed to monitor the runoff, highlighting the election’s regional significance.

The shift away from left‑wing rule in Bolivia mirrors a broader global trend in which right‑leaning parties are gaining ground, often driven by economic and immigration concerns. The 2024 election of President Donald Trump in the US has been cited as an influential factor shaping political dynamics across Latin America, Europe and beyond.

Some context, how we got here

As longtime readers of our newsletter may remember from our previous overview, this has not been a simple election cycle. An attempted military coup in June 2024 set the stage for this election cycle, and the pressure, while nowhere near as intense, has not let up.

The election began in August, with voters unenthused for all eight candidates, before narrowing dramatically in the first runoff election under the nation’s 2009 constitution. Things remained messy, with former President Morales calling on his supporters to cast a “null” vote, and a vice-presidential debate colored by name-calling and little in the way of policy.

In the end, there is one winner. President-elect Paz will take office on November 8 and has promised to continue many of the left-wing government’s popular social programs while investing more heavily in the private sector. He has also promised to try to deepen ties with the US, which have been rocky for years now.

Paz has announced plans to end Bolivia’s fuel‑subsidy program — a move that may prove harder than he expects. When former President Evo Morales tried to eliminate subsidies in 2011, nationwide protests forced the government to reverse the decision after just one week. Whether public opinion has shifted enough over the past 14 years, or whether Paz will choose a different path, remains to be seen. 

The drama of this election cannot be understood without revisiting the figure who has shaped Bolivia’s politics for the past 15 years: Evo Morales, whose rise and fall set the stage for today’s contest and remains the linchpin of the country’s partisan divide. His removal from power in 2019 — and the lingering rifts within the MAS party — continue to influence voter sentiment, campaign strategies and the very narratives that are now driving the runoff.

In the 2019 presidential election, Morales sought a fourth term despite a 2016 referendum in which voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have allowed him to run again. After the vote, the official tally showed Morales leading but falling short of the 10 percentage‑point margin required to avoid a runoff. Allegations of irregularities — particularly the sudden, unexplained surge in vote counts after a 24‑hour pause — triggered massive street protests and accusations of electoral fraud. 

The opposition, civil‑society groups and parts of the military demanded his resignation. Facing escalating unrest, a police officer publicly warned Morales of an “illegal arrest warrant,” and on 10 November 2019, Morales announced his resignation, describing the episode as a “civic coup” orchestrated by right‑wing forces and the armed forces. 

After leaving office, Morales remained the leader of the Movimiento al Socialismo(MAS) party, which had governed Bolivia since 2006. However, growing tensions with President Luis Arce — who succeeded Morales in 2020 — culminated in a split. 

In early 2025, MAS barred Morales from running for president, prompting him to briefly join the Front for Victory (Frente para la Victoria, FPV), a minor party with no ties to Argentina’s similarly named coalition. His FPV membership was revoked a few months later amid disputes over the party’s presidential candidate.

Thus, while Morales’ historic base remains the MAS party, his recent attempts to re-enter electoral politics have been through the short-lived Frente para la Victoria [FPV], indicating that any current formal connection is tenuous and subject to rapid change.

The fallout from Morales’s 2019 ouster and the fractures within MAS have left Bolivia’s foreign policy in flux. With a centrist president‑elect now on the horizon, regional partners and global powers alike are scrambling to recalibrate their ties to the Andes nation. That is why, within hours of the runoff result, a chorus of diplomatic messages began arriving in La Paz — signaling both a welcome relief from the country’s recent isolation and a strategic interest in the direction Bolivia will take under Rodrigo Paz.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East, so far, that has welcomed the election of Paz and hopes to restore relations. The US, a coalition of Latin‑American neighbors (Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Trinidad and Tobago), the EU, Canada and Germany have also issued congratulatory statements, underscoring the broad diplomatic appetite for a new chapter in Bolivia’s foreign policy.

The Bolivian government cut ties with Israel in 2023 over alleged war crimes in Gaza. Similar to other leftist groups, the ruling Bolivian leftist party was quick to condemn Israel. It is worth noting that the incumbent Israeli government is a right-wing party that has ruled the country for much of the last twenty years.

As the world watches the outcomes of elections in the great powers, it’s often the smaller nations — like Bolivia — that offer the clearest barometer of shifting political tides, economic stressors, and emerging alliances. Israel’s decision to be the first Middle‑Eastern state to formally acknowledge President‑elect Rodrigo Paz underscores how even a single diplomatic gesture can reverberate far beyond the Andes and have global significance. 

We therefore welcome insights and perspectives from readers everywhere, because a truly global conversation depends on voices from every corner of the planet. Your observations help us spot the subtle currents that shape tomorrow’s national and international landscape.