The Tragedy of Bolivian Socialism

Compact.com ^ | October 21, 2025 | Juan David Rojas

[E. Pluribus Unum]

n October 19, Bolivians elected Rodrigo Paz Pereira to the presidency. A center-right senator and son of former president Jaime Paz Zamora (1989-1993), Paz ran on a platform of “Capitalism For All,” defeating conservative former president Jorge Quiroga in a run-off. This contest between two right-wing candidates marked a decisive end to almost two decades of political dominance by the leftist Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), formerly led by Evo Morales, who served three presidential terms between 2006 and 2019. In the first round of voting, the MAS candidate for president received just 3 percent of the vote, and the party’s representation in the Chamber of Deputies fell from 75 to one; in the Senate, it went from 21 to zero. 

By many measures, MAS was the most successful of all the “pink tide” leftist governments that took power across Latin America during the 2000s. But in recent years, shortages, spiraling inflation, and internal power struggles between Morales and his successor, Luis Arce, led to a collapse in the party’s support. Morales supporters blamed the decisive defeat of the left on the former president’s disqualification, pointing to a high number of blank and spoiled ballots—around 22 percent. But it is unclear whether the megalomaniacal Morales would have made it to the run-off, let alone won the presidency; the top three candidates in the first round were all right-of-center, with the right securing 78 percent of the vote for president and congress. 

“MAS’s fall from grace has enabled the return of the same neoliberal regime that preceded it.”

MAS’s fall from grace has enabled the return of the same neoliberal regime that preceded it. What is more, the conditions that led to MAS’s downfall are similar to those that enabled its rise in the first place. Throughout the 1990s...

[BatGuano]

Be sorry for Bolivia.

Long ago, a lady neighbor told me that her husband was, “drunk beyond Bolivia!”

I did not have a clue what she meant.
So I answered, “he will be back!”