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Armed supporters of Bolivia’s charismatic former president, Evo Morales, stormed a military facility in the central Bolivian region of Cochabamba on November 1. The group forced their way into the facility, seized weapons and ammunition and, according to the government, took more than 200 soldiers hostage.
Tensions have been rising across the country over the past couple of months. At the start of October, supporters of Morales (of which there are many) began blocking key roads around the country in protest at an investigation into him for alleged statutory rape and human trafficking. Morales has denied the allegations and is refusing to testify in court.
And then, on October 24, Morales said he was the subject of an assassination attempt while travelling in his car in the Cochabamba region. He took to social media to accuse the government of ordering a targeted attack on him, which Bolivia’s interior minister, Eduardo del Castillo, has rejected.
A heavy-handed crackdown has not brought an end to the blockades, and the protesters spearheading them are becoming ever more violent. Reports of government supporters and security forces clashing with demonstrators loyal to Morales are now increasingly common.
Bolivia was, until fairly recently, seen throughout Latin America as a shining example of good governance. It was touted as a beacon of hope for indigenous people across the region, who have suffered centuries of marginalisation and discrimination.
Morales, who in 2006 became Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, governed in favour of these people. A reformed constitution in 2009 gave official status to 36 Indigenous peoples and languages. And respect for Pachamama – a goddess revered by the Indigenous people of the Andes – was enshrined in the constitution.
However, his political manoeuvring within Bolivia has always been controversial. Bolivians responded with a clear “no” when a referendum in 2016 asked them if they wanted to drop the limit on the number of terms a president can serve. So, in true authoritarian fashion, he appointed a constitutional court to circumvent the rules and scrap term limits altogether.
Armed with this new ruling, Morales ran for and won a record fourth term in 2019 in an election that was widely regarded as having been rigged to skew the results in his favour. The Organization of American States, a regional body that monitored the elections, found “clear manipulation” and said the election results did not give Morales the mandate to remain in power.
Political violence followed, which saw 36 Bolivians killed and over 100 injured, and the head of Bolivian army, General Williams Kaliman, urged Morales to step down. Left with little room to manoeuvre, Morales had to resign. But, he said at the time that “he had been the victim of a coup”. Following his resignation, Morales fled the country first to Argentina and then to Mexico.
Morales has made a stunning comeback to the Bolivian political scene in the years since then, leaving more turmoil in his wake. The party that Morales once led, Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas), is in power, but it is inimical to the former president and his supporters.
Finding themselves in this precarious position, both Morales and his supporters feel the only way to circumvent the power of the state is to fight it through blockades and armed protests. It is a tactic that Morales had perfected in his past role as the leader of Bolivia’s union of coca growers.
Internal power struggle
The current spike in unrest, which the government says is costing the country billions of dollars, may be a prelude to a bigger showdown in 2025 when Bolivians elect their next president. Bolivia’s current president, Luis Arce, and Morales both want to be the Mas candidate and are currently locked in a bitter fight for control of the party.
Arce controls all state institutions and commands strong support in urban areas of the country. But Morales holds sway over his indigenous support base in Cochabamba and the coca-growing Chapare region in the Amazon basin.
In late September 2024, Morales led thousands of his followers on a protest march to Bolivia’s capital city, La Paz, to “save” Bolivia from his successor. More recently, Morales has accused the government of trying to disqualify him from running in 2025.
The armed blockades, violent protests and now a hunger strike by Morales are intended to galvanise his traditional support base. And Morales has not hesitated to play the race card. As he put it when speaking about the investigation into him: “My crime is being Indigenous.”
Under Morales, the country’s Indigenous people had gained a degree of respectability and many were lifted out of poverty. But Morales is now employing a brand of politics that, far from helping Bolivians unite against impoverishment and underdevelopment, is turning out to be an exercise less about people and more about personal power ambitions.
Amalendu Misra is a recipient of British Academy and Nuffield Foundation fellowships.
