Since early May, the Bolivian government has been on the ropes. Workers and peasants have blockaded roads, protested and struck against a series of austerity programs pushed by the newly elected government of Rodrigo Paz. On 8 June, Paz prepared to escalate state repression by passing a law that would allow him to declare a state of emergency, deploy the military to the streets and suspend constitutional guarantees. But despite the harsh repression already meted out, there are no signs of the movement backing down.
This round of struggle in Bolivia is the latest in a series of intense class conflicts in the country since at least 2019, when a successful right-wing coup ousted the reformist Movement to Socialism (MAS), which had ruled since 2006. Coup leader Jeanine Anez, representing a bloodthirsty far right, which had been locked out of power for over a decade, unleashed extreme state repression. One of her first acts was to issue a decree removing criminal liability from the police and military in dealing with protesters. This gave free rein to the state security apparatus, resulting in the Senkata and Sacaba massacres, in which security forces murdered at least 21 people. Anez then went on to attempt a severe austerity program and attack the trade unions and peasant organisations. But her rule was always unstable and, in October 2020, after multiple delays, elections were held and the MAS returned to power with 55 percent of the vote from an 88 percent turnout.
However, the MAS government faced its own problems. Its historic leader, Evo Morales, who served as president from 2006 to 2019, was constitutionally barred from running. Instead, his economy minister, Luis Arce, led the MAS presidential ticket. Arce, however, would go on to govern in very different circumstances to the early period of MAS rule.
During the 2000s and early 2010s, Latin America experienced a resources boom. Leaders like Morales used the boom to fund social programs, which lifted the living conditions of the poorest sections of society, without fundamentally attacking the wealth and privileges of the capitalist class. This period was known as the “Pink Tide”.
With rising living standards, the MAS won the loyalty of a large section of Bolivia’s working class and peasantry, securing it large election majorities, including 64 percent of the vote in 2009. But when the boom began to slow down around 2012, largely due to a downturn in China, which was the main buyer of Latin American resources, Morales and the MAS began to wind back some of their social programs.
The long period of MAS rule, therefore, explains the intense reaction of the far right in 2019 under Anez, but also the willingness of the working class and peasantry to defend the real gains it made under Morales. But when the MAS returned to power in 2020, under Arce, it no longer had the revenue from the resources boom to continue lifting living standards. Further, Arce faced the dual crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic impact. In 2025, inflation reached 25 percent, and fuel shortages made long lines at petrol stations a common occurrence. At the same time, during Arce’s presidency, a major internal split opened up in the MAS between supporters of the new president and Morales. Largely over whether Arce or Morales would be the MAS’s next presidential candidate, the split extended to the MAS in parliament, pushing the government into a congressional minority.
By the 2025 elections, the MAS was so divided that Morales attempted to run with a new party, but was constitutionally barred, and instead called for a null vote. Arce, for his part, was so unpopular that he did not seek re-election. The result was a paltry 3 percent for a party that only a few years ago commanded the loyalty of huge sections of workers and peasants. The decline in the MAS vote was what allowed Paz to win the election. He did not run as a far-right candidate. Instead, he made a direct appeal to former MAS voters by promising pension increases, protection of certain gains of the MAS period and more dialogue with MAS voters. His campaign slogan was “Capitalism for all”.
Almost immediately after winning the elections, however, Paz showed his true colours. One of his first acts was to travel to the United States to secure a US$3.1 billion loan from the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean. He also immediately aligned himself with the regional far right, supporting Javier Milei, Argentina’s self-declared “anarcho-capitalist” president, and Maria Corina Machado, the leader of the Venezuelan far right. His real plan, though, is to accomplish what the Bolivian far right has failed to do since the early 2000s: wind back the gains of the MAS period, smash the workers’ and peasants’ organisations, and implement neoliberalism.
Paz’s agenda should be understood in the broader regional context. In many other Latin American countries in recent years, the far right has returned to power after being locked out of government during the Pink Tide period. But the far right has itself been radicalised over recent years. It seeks to unwind both social and economic gains, and is prepared to use extreme state violence to do so.
Imperial tensions are also playing a role. Many of the Pink Tide governments aligned their countries more closely with China, which increasingly became their main trading partner. With Donald Trump’s return to the White House, there has been an attempt to realign the region under US hegemony. Bolivia is particularly at the sharp end of these tensions. It has one-fifth of the world’s lithium reserves, a crucial resource for key industries of the twentieth century, like electric vehicles.
Paz’s first major attempt to begin this process came in December when he removed fuel subsidies, causing prices to nearly double overnight. Almost immediately, large protests broke out, forcing the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB, the main trade union federation) to call an indefinite general strike. By early January, the protests had resulted in a truce. Paz and the COB leadership agreed to the elimination of the subsidies in exchange for a 20 percent wage increase and lifting the street blockades. But for large sections of the rank and file, the agreement was a betrayal. Many local organisations ignored the order to lift the blockades and openly criticised the COB leadership.
The pressure the COB leadership faced is particularly important given that a challenger ticket recently won control of it in October 2025. The challenge originated in the powerful miners’ union. With mining one of Bolivia’s major industries and an important source of foreign currency at a time when the domestic currency is rapidly devaluing, miners have significant industrial power and are a vanguard section of the Bolivian working class. From early 2025, a rank-and-file movement developed within the miners’ union that was explicitly aimed against the MAS leadership, specifically calling for Arce’s resignation. This movement eventually led to a new leadership that called for “class independence” and a break with the MAS, both Morales and Arce. With a challenger leadership winning control of arguably the country’s most powerful union, the same process then ousted the old COB leadership, which was closely aligned with the MAS.
However, the agreement the new COB leadership signed with Paz in January shows that, although they may be a break with the old MAS leadership, they remain similarly committed to a strategy that collaborates with the government to find a peaceful, negotiated solution to the crisis, rather than push for more class conflict.
The latest round of protests and strikes, which began in early May, is therefore a continuation of the intense class struggle in Bolivia. Various groups of workers—teachers, miners, transport workers, among others—began protesting and striking in the weeks and months leading up to May, largely over immediate economic demands. These actions culminated in a rally in El Alto, followed by a mass meeting led by COB leaders on 1 May, where they declared an indefinite general strike beginning the next day.
Another important development came a few days later, on 6 May. Leaders of major unions and peasant organisations met to sign an “Inter-institutional Act of Unity and Loyalty” that recommitted the COB and other organisations to the indefinite general strike and to maintaining road blockades. The COB leader dubbed it a “Pact of No Betrayal,” as it has now become known. Since then, the protests and strikes have only grown, while dozens of blockades all over the country are impeding traffic on major highways and roads.
The government’s response has been increased repression. Paz has also directly gone after the COB leadership, issuing arrest warrants for several of them, although the courts have suspended some. The situation remains very open. Paz is under pressure to bring the protests to an end, as even sections of the establishment and the right are beginning to break with him. His latest legislative move to give himself the authority to declare a state of emergency—something Arce placed restrictions on after the 2019 coup—is a clear indication of his willingness to continue escalating the repression. The workers and peasants also show no signs of giving up. Their challenge is to go beyond the COB leadership, which continues to seek a safe, negotiated exit from the crisis.
