• The 2025 Election Results
  • The Electoral Collapse of the MAS
  • Economic Woes for the Electorate
  • Surging Inflation
  • Dwindling Natural Gas Exports
    • Rodrigo Paz

    Bolivia's President-elect Rodrigo Paz. (AP)

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    The 2025 Election Results The Electoral Collapse of the MAS Economic Woes for the Electorate Surging Inflation Dwindling Natural Gas Exports

    Rodrigo Paz Wins: Bolivia's Electoral Context in Five Charts

    By Khalea Robertson and Carin Zissis

    Paz won over disillusioned voters in the October runoff but faces a challenging economic scenario when he takes the reins in November. 

    For the first time in two decades, Bolivian voters opted for something new. After defying polls to bring home the biggest vote share in the first round, Rodrigo Paz Pereira won Bolivia’s presidential runoff on October 19 and, in doing so, ended the 20-year dominance of the Movement for Socialism (MAS). The leftist MAS, hobbled by unpopularity linked to Bolivia’s economic downturn and infighting between its long-time populist leader, ex-President Evo Morales (2006–2019), and outgoing President Luis Arce, will also have a severely diminished role in the country’s fragmented legislature.

    Paz, who won 54.6 percent of the second-round vote to beat conservative rival Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, may have been a surprise victor in the August 17 first round, but he’s no stranger to politics. He was born in Spain in 1967 during the exile of his father Jaime Paz Zamora, then a leftist dissident during Bolivia’s authoritarian regimes. The elder Paz would go on to become president from 1989 to 1993. The younger, U.S.-educated Paz would go on to become first a local politician and then a senator representing Tarija, a major gas- and wine-producing region in Bolivia’s south.

    Paz’s triumph has widely been framed as a move to the right, although where he sits on the political spectrum is not so simple to pin down. Running under the slogan “Capitalism for All,” he has historically aligned himself with parties of varying political leanings. In his campaign, he worked to win over disillusioned MAS voters and pledged not to cut off the social programs of his predecessors, saying, “Ideologies don’t put food on the table.” His TikTok-savvy running mate Edman Lara, a former police captain, also helped him tap into working-class voter frustration.

    Paz has voiced his goal of ending years of bilateral animosity with the United States, and Washington appears ready to return the sentiment. On the same day as the runoff, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Paz, saying: “The United States stands ready to partner with Bolivia on shared priorities, including ending illegal immigration, improved market access for bilateral investment, and combating transnational criminal organizations to strengthen regional security.”

    In five charts, AS/COA Online explores Paz’s victory, MAS’ decline, and the challenges that await the incoming president, who will be inaugurated on November 8. 

    The 2025 Election Results

    Paz again defied the pollsters with his second-round win. His runoff campaign received an endorsement from fellow first-round hopeful Samuel Doria Medina, a conservative businessman who had led polling for much of the lead-up to the August 17 first-round vote. 

     

    The Electoral Collapse of the MAS

    The chart below shows the waxing and waning of the MAS since 2002 by showing the party’s vote share in first-round votes, given that 2025 marked Bolivia’s first runoff. In October 2019, Morales claimed to stave off the need for a runoff when results showed he had exceeded the requisite 10 percent margin over his closest rival, Carlos Mesa, in an election observers said was riddled with irregularities. Within three weeks, Morales resigned amid subsequent turbulence and following an interim government, Arce won the 2020 election.

     

    Economic Woes for the Electorate

    From sluggish growth to massive fuel shortages, Bolivia’s economic woes topped voter worries heading into the runoff. 

     

    Surging Inflation

    Paz’s party will hold the largest number of seats in the legislature, though not an outright majority. He has pledged to build consensus in a divisive political environment. Still, a major test for his government will be facing the country’s major economic challenges when he takes office. Inflation rates run at roughly 23 percent year-on-year amid a shortage of U.S. dollars related to government subsidies and slumping gas exports.  

     

    Dwindling Natural Gas Exports

    In the early 2000s, the country’s economy—and MAS’ popularity—were boosted by high commodity prices, leading to $14 billion in foreign reserves by 2014, reports Americas Quarterly. But, given weak exploration, gas revenue dried up and, with that, foreign currency reserves dried up. However, previous attempts to cut fuel subsidies have triggered social unrest.

     

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