Between the null vote promoted by Evo Morales and the dispersion of the progressive camp, the right wing is poised to reopen the neoliberal path that the MAS had closed for twenty years.
Polls indicate that, adding up the probable null, undecided, and blank votes, there could be between 20% and 30% of voters who will not choose any of the candidates, a fact that will invariably favor the right-wing candidates. We have already seen this movie in Ecuador, when the Pachakutik candidate called for a null vote, favoring the candidacy of banker Guillermo Lasso against the then progressive candidate supported by Rafael Correa.
The example of what happened in Bolivia’s MAS, in its internal factional struggles, should serve as food for thought on the limits and methods of a partisan dispute capable of bringing about the return to power of the greatest enemy: the internal extreme right and imperialism.
This lesson must be part of the educational process for the entire Latin American left, especially in a context of the advance of the global far right and the most recent imperialist offensive in the continent, which, with Trump’s re-election, seeks new levels of submission and recolonization of the Latin American peoples in the context of the destructive dispute for global geopolitical leadership and unilateralism.
National elections will be held in Bolivia this Sunday, August 17, both in the country and in 32 countries where citizens will vote online. In total, nearly 7.5 million Bolivians are eligible to vote at one of the 34,000 polling stations to elect a president, vice president, 36 senators (four per region), and 130 deputies (63 in single-member constituencies and 60 proportionally, according to the votes obtained by each party’s presidential candidate), in addition to the seven seats reserved for indigenous representatives. All terms are for five years.
The 2025 electoral landscape is mainly marked by two factors: the serious economic crisis the country is going through and the structural crisis of the MAS. After the registration and withdrawal period, only eight candidates remain in the presidential race: six represent the right and two come from sectors that emerged from the Movement for Socialism, the hegemonic left-wing party that has been in power for two decades.
One of the causes of the MAS crisis stems from Evo Morales’ lack of a conscious policy to promote the renewal of the national leadership. This led to a fratricidal opposition against the government of Luis Arce, the loss of party control, affiliations to ghost parties, and 22 days of blockades of the country’s main roads by tens of thousands of militant indigenous Evo supporters in an attempt to force his illegally banned candidacy.
All of this was fundamentally caused by the erosion of Arce’s government and the economic crisis it led the nation into, which forced him to renounce re-election. The result of this self-destructive dispute, aggravated by serious moral accusations and maneuvers on both sides between Evo and Arce, plus the majority indigenous support for Evo, also produced a total division of the party leadership, social movements, and the MAS’s bases of influence.
The party is fractured into three factions: those who support Evo Morales (president between 2006 and 2019); those who back the current president, Luis Arce; and those who support the young Andrónico Rodríguez, the current president of the Senate. The divisions deepened when Morales returned to Bolivia after his exile in Argentina—following the 2019 coup—and the suspension of his arrest warrant in November 2020.
Little by little, Evo entered into open confrontation with the Arce government, which was increasingly moving to the right, crystallizing the divisions in most of the social movements that had supported him for years. It is a sad reflection of the crisis of one of the largest and most socially integrated political organizations in Latin America, which governed the country (except for the brief period of the 2019 coup) uninterruptedly for 20 years and today causes demoralization and discouragement among its popular base.
A scenario of economic crisis
In addition to this fragmentation, the election is taking place in the worst economic context since 1985, when the Democratic and Popular Unity (UDP)–the first progressive front after the dictatorship–lost the elections, returning power to the neoliberal right for two decades.
In the first seven months of 2025, Bolivia recorded cumulative inflation of 16.92%, the highest level in 40 years. The Bolivian currency lost half its value on the parallel market this year, although the official exchange rate remains artificially stable thanks to state intervention. There is a shortage of dollars and the prices of imported products have doubled. Supermarkets adjust their prices monthly. Medicine shortages, exacerbated by the lack of foreign currency, have led to price increases of up to 130%.
Until a few years ago, gas provided billions in revenue and allowed the country to accumulate significant international reserves to finance massive social policies. But since 2015, production has been in decline and the contract to sell gas to Argentina has been terminated. According to data from the National Institute of Statistics, between January and June of this year, gas exports—the main source of income—fell by 35.5%. Today, the lack of fuel causes endless lines of trucks in rural areas and long lines for gasoline in cities.
The government insists that the crisis is temporary, but in reality it is a response to both the global fall in commodity prices and the long-term limits of the MAS policies, which did not break with the historical model of an extractive economy dependent on primary exports, with high external debt and low industrialization. Although they did break with imperialism by granting most of the exploitation licenses to BRICS companies.
In this adverse scenario, only two of the eight presidential candidates are from the left, both from the MAS: Eduardo del Castillo, 38, former government minister (2020-2025) and the ruling party’s candidate after Arce’s withdrawal; and Andrónico Rodríguez, 36, president of the Senate and former coca leader in Chapare, now at odds with Morales and supported by the Popular Alliance. Rodríguez proposes “sovereign industrialization” of mining, with state production of metals such as lithium, silver, and copper, and local manufacturing of batteries and components for renewable energy, in addition to austerity measures and fuel subsidy cuts.
The remaining six candidates are all from the right, led by billionaire Samuel Doria Medina (Alianza Unidad) and Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga (Alianza Libertad), both with between 20% and 24.5% of the vote. Quiroga, a former interim president and former IMF and World Bank official, proposes privatization, the elimination of subsidies, and the criminalization of blockades. Medina, a businessman from La Paz, advocates the closure of state institutions, austerity, and Nayib Bukele’s security strategy.
All right-wing candidates support the pro-Western extractivist model and an agreement with the IMF. Those on the left, in less credible polls, are far behind: Rodríguez with between 5.5% and 8.4%, and Del Castillo with just 2%. On August 6, Evo Morales called for a null vote. According to averages, the null vote could reach 25%, with undecided voters accounting for between 5% and 14%. Thus, votes not cast for any candidate could reach between 30% and 40%, which would favor the right, as happened in Ecuador with Pachakutik and Guillermo Lasso.
End of the MAS cycle
In this context of economic crisis and corruption scandals plaguing the Arce government, it is difficult for the outlook to change. The division of the MAS is a defeat for the popular movement on a national and international scale. Although Arce belatedly attempted to call Morales, Andrónico, and other leaders to a meeting in July, the split was already irreversible. It would be a symbolic gesture for Arce’s MAS to withdraw its candidacy and support Andrónico, who is in the best position.
Faced with this scenario, the only positive option against the return of neoliberalism is to vote for Andrónico Rodríguez. Voting blank today is a political crime. Almost half of the electorate is under 35, a generation formed under the leadership of Morales and Arce, which today is disappointed and without prospects. But it is necessary to resist and build new alternatives. The MAS itself demonstrated, after defeating Jeanine Áñez’s fascist coup in 2019, that the progressive grassroots had the reserves to rise up against a racist and pro-imperialist coup. We must rediscover that path of struggle.