Explainer: Bolivia's 2025 Elections

For the past two decades, MAS has dominated elections to become Bolivia’s hegemonic governing party. Born out of indigenous and trade union activism in the country’s highlands, it gained enough support to hold sway—and at times two-thirds majorities—in the Legislative Assembly, in addition to avoiding runoffs in each presidential election since Morales first won in 2005. This includes the 2020 election, when Arce, Morales’ former economy minister (2009–2017, 2019), surprised pollsters by winning the first round with 55 percent of the vote share after polling at around 40 percent. 

But infighting between Arce and Morales has fractured MAS, representing what political scientist Diego von Vacano of Texas A&M University described to AS/COA Online as “a cataclysmic event in Bolivian politics.” Tensions between Morales and Arce began shortly after the latter assumed office, setting off an embittered leadership battle within the party. In May 2024, an internal election convened by the arcista, or Arce-linked, faction replaced Morales as head of the MAS, effectively pushing him out of the party he’d led for 27 years and alienating evistas, supporters of Evo.

Several other flashpoints have punctuated the continuing feud: a June 2024 coup attempt against the sitting president followed by accusations from evistas that Arce himself was behind it; an October 2024 assassination attempt against Morales he blamed on Arce; and an ongoing series of protests spearheaded by Morales’ supporters that turned deadly in June. The schism, says von Vacano, means that “the MAS doesn’t really exist anymore except in name.”

Amid economic turmoil, support for MAS’ project, which oversaw reductions in poverty rates and centered indigenous political participation, has waned. For social sectors and movements traditionally associated with MAS, writer and political commentator Quya Reyna told AS/COA Online, “Maybe the new project is no longer plurinational, but rather a nationalist Bolivian project focused on the economy in order to give Bolivians dignity, because Bolivia is also in a process of not feeling a sense of global pride.”

Bolivia’s election comes amid a “structural economic crisis more than a decade in the making,” political scientist María Teresa Zegada of Cochabamba’s Higher University of San Simón told AS/COA Online. Economic issues are central in the minds of voters, with rising prices, fuel shortages, dollar shortages, and unemployment ranking as four of the top five most-concerning problems. “The main preoccupation of voters is that the economy has to be reactivated in some way,” said von Vacano.

Bolivia’s economy features a pegged exchange rate and subsidies for fuel and some food items. The export of natural gas during a period of high commodity prices from 2003 to 2014 fueled the spending. In 2014, Bolivia had almost $14 billion in international reserves. But over the past decade, commodity prices steadied while production slumped, shutting off an economic engine and depleting reserves. In 2023, the Bolivia Central Bank lacked the currency reserves to back the peg and ceased to publish public reports, sparking a panic.

Since then, Bolivia has experienced sustained inflation and uncertainty around the stability of its currency. Many importers have been forced to buy dollars on the black market to maintain their operations and the inflation rate hit a 34-year high in June with consumer prices standing 24 percent higher than a year earlier. The government has blamed blockades by Morales supporters for the price spikes. 

Another issue on the minds of voters? Corruption and a generalized distrust of state institutions. Latinobarometro’s 2024 survey showed that, on a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 is “totally corrupt”, Bolivians ranked their country 7.8 on average, the fourth-highest score in the Latin America. With respect to elections, just 7 percent of respondents said they believed votes were generally “clean” in Bolivia, the lowest rate in the region. “There is a very weak institutionality in Bolivia,” said Zegada. “There are many doubts surrounding the electoral organ [and] this raises alarm bells because not only can the [electoral] process be questioned, but also the results.”

High-profile scandals also impacted the credibility of key political figures. In January 2025, a judge in Tarija issued an arrest warrant for Evo Morales on statutory rape and human trafficking charges. The allegations date back to his presidency in 2015, when he was accused of impregnating a then-15-year-old girl. Morales has refused to appear in court, claiming that he’s the victim of “lawfare,” and is said to be in hiding in his home region of Chapare. 

Meanwhile, a consortium of media outlets published a May 2025 investigative report about Arce’s youngest son concerning alleged influence peddling and environmental crimes connected to a two-thousand-hectare tract of protected land he bought for $3.3 million in 2021. The president has denied his son committed wrongdoing. 

So far, none of the eight candidates are polling above 25 percent. Leading, though, are two figures who were once in discussion to collaborate on a unified opposition ticket for this election: Samuel Doria Medina and Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga. That single ticket didn’t emerge, and now both Doria Medina and Quiroga are running campaigns in opposition to MAS rule, promoting an open economy, human rights, and foreign investment, award-winning journalist Raúl Peñaranda told AS/COA Online. 

Doria Medina is representing what did coalesce of an opposition bloc, known as the Unity Alliance. The businessman, who led the country’s biggest cement manufacturer and owns Burger King franchises, served as minister of planning (1991–1993) under President Jaime Paz Zamora (1989–1993). His coalition includes former President Carlos Mesa (2003–2005) and far-right governor of Santa Cruz department, Luis Fernando Camacho (2021–2024). 

Doria Medina proposes mending Bolivia’s economic crisis by shuttering state entities he has called “useless,” implementing austerity measures, and lifting price controls. He wants to create a $5 billion stabilization fund to aid this transition until exports recover.

A victim of a kidnapping in 1995, Doria Medina has expressed his admiration for the security strategy of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. Bolivia has seen a rise in illicit drug trafficking in the past several years. 

Polling second, Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga is seeking to return to the presidency for a full term. Elected as vice president on a ticket with Hugo Banzer in 1997, he assumed the presidency for 12 months after Banzer, who was also a military dictator in the 1970s, stepped down due to medical issues. Since then, Quiroga has run for president three times, worked at the IMF and World Bank, and served briefly in the interim administration of Jeanine Áñez in 2019 and 2020. Von Vacano said Quiroga is running “more of a symbolic campaign, representing an old conservative strain.” 

Quiroga’s vision for Bolivia includes shrinking and digitizing the state, creating clear rules for private investment, privatizing state firms, and reforming the judiciary.

Other opposition candidates include Cochabamba Mayor Manfred Reyes Villa (1994–2000, 2021–present) of the Autonomy for Bolivia party, who is running on a message of law and order, including using the military to end blockades. His economic plan would seek to generate one million jobs, pass tax reform, and lift subsidies. Reyes Villa fled Bolivia for the United States in 2009 after a warrant was issued for his arrest after he missed a court hearing related to the alleged fraudulent sale of private property. He was sentenced to five years in prison in 2013 for economic misconduct but his case was suspended in 2021, the same year he won reelection to the Cochabamba mayorship. 

Doria Medina, Quiroga, and Villa Reyes all agree that Bolivia should engage with the IMF to solve the economic crisis, said Von Vacano.

The leading candidate among those considered left-of-center or progressive, polling around 8 to 12 percent, is 36-year-old Senate President Andrónico Rodríguez. He grew up in a small, coca leaf-producing town in Cochabamba. After studying political science at Universidad Mayor de San Simón, he took up leadership positions in Bolivia’s influential coca farmers’ trade union federation, eventually rising to the vice presidency of the group under Morales and then the presidency in 2019 during the interim Áñez administration. Rodríguez is completing his first term in the Senate. 

Formerly of the MAS, but now running independently with the Popular Alliance, many viewed Rodríguez as Morales’ heir due to his rural Cochabamba origins and trade union trajectory. However, Morales and his supporters have labeled Rodríguez’s presidential run a betrayal. For his part, Rodríguez has distanced himself from both the former president and the incumbent MAS government, attempting to represent a younger, more moderate vision of the left that can appeal to the MAS’ traditional social base and beyond. 

Analysts like Zegada and Reyna believe that much of the “undecided” and “blank” votes captured in polling are left-wing voters who will end up casting ballots for Rodríguez. Both pointed to Arce’s 2020 first-round victory as precedent. Reyna added that in a “political crisis where the MAS has been demonized, many people don’t want to say that they are going to vote for the MAS,” but are still wary of “the liberal model of privatization” promoted by the opposition, thereby leaving Rodríguez, or a blank vote, as the alternative.

To address the country’s current financial downturn, Rodríguez’s economic program puts forward austerity measures the document describes as “neither neoliberal nor antisocial.” These include cutting back on personnel spending within the public sector, establishing an emergency fiscal rule to limit recurrent expenditure, and replacing universal subsidies with need-based subventions, as well as gradually getting rid of the longstanding fuel subsidy. His agenda also outlines intentions to provide credit incentives for export sectors while promoting an import substitution strategy to reduce foreign exchange spending on imports. Rodríguez calls for a “sovereign industrialization” of the mining sector, with plans to establish state production of key metals such as lithium, silver, and copper, including manufacture of batteries and other components needed for renewable energy.

With the July 28 withdrawal of Eva Copa, the 38-year-old mayor of El Alto who left MAS in 2020, the other leftist candidate of note is Eduardo del Castillo, a 36-year-old lawyer who served as Arce’s interior minister until taking up the mantle of MAS’ official presidential candidate. Neither of these candidates registered more than 3 percent support in polls. If MAS fails to win at least 3 percent of the vote share, the party dissolves. Arce attempted to unite the left, inviting Copa, Rodríguez, and representatives of Morales to a July 24 meeting with MAS, but they did not show up. “These young candidates don’t really represent the desired change because they are burdened by MAS’ legacy in power,” said Zegada.

On August 17, Bolivians will also elect all of the members of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. It is expected that a majority of these seats will reflect the presidential race. All 36 senators and 60 of the 130 deputies are elected proportionally based on the votes each party's presidential candidate gets. Then, 63 deputies are elected directly from single member districts and there are seven seats reserved for indigenous representatives. All terms are five years.

The MAS, for all of its rule, has had a majority—or even two-thirds majority—in Congress, allowing Morales and Arce to advance their agenda. However, Peñarada believes it is unlikely any party will possess a majority in Congress. “We are going back to the system we had before Evo Morales’ big victory where the president who won had to form alliances, like in a semi-parliamentary system, to give him governability,” he said.

Peñarada said he believes it is likely that the parties of Doria Medina and Quiroga may enter an alliance to secure a majority, ending MAS control of Congress.

This will be the first election since a 2024 census update to the distribution of seats. Santa Cruz gained one seat in the Chamber of Deputies and now has 29, the same number as La Paz. Cochabamba retains the third-most seats with 19. These regions are often seen as the centers of Bolivia’s East–West political and cultural divide. The Andean highlands of the West, where most of the Aymara and Quechua populations reside, have been a stronghold for the MAS. Santa Cruz is considered a base of conservative support, associated with what many Bolivians view as the country’s more urban, “upper-middle class elites,” said Zegada.