Preliminary Analysis of the General Elections in Bolivia By Camila Azeñas
The general elections in Bolivia, held on August 17, have yielded a result that traditional political science and superficial analysis attribute exclusively to the internal fracture of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS-IPSP).
According to their conclusions, the struggle between the factions led by Evo (without a presidential candidacy, who officially campaigned for the null vote and achieved 19.78%, from which 5% average null vote from recent elections must be substracted), Arce (the current president, represented in the elections by Eduardo Del Castillo, his ex-Minister of Government with 3.17%), and Andrónico Rodríguez with 8.51% (current president of the Chamber of Deputies) would have divided the pro-government vote, allowing the victory of an 'outsider'. However, this explanation is insufficient because it mystifies the underlying class reality.
The triumph of Rodrigo Paz and Edman Lara with the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) is not a conjunctural accident, but rather the result of the structural convergence between the exhaustion of social-democratic reformism, which ideologically disarmed the working class, and the rise of a new conservative power block, articulated around a national-religious, anti-statist (but not anti-capitalist) and right-wing populist discourse, which knew how to capitalize on discontent and offer an illusory salvation within the frameworks of capital.
Pre-election polls by firms like Ipsos CIESMORI and Captura Consulting expressed the profound organic crisis and the incapacity of the bourgeoisie to unify a hegemonic project. A "technical tie" between Samuel Doria Medina (National Unity) who had around 21%, and Jorge 'Tuto' Quiroga (Free Alliance), with 20%, both clear representatives of the factions of financial capital and the traditional agro-exporting capital, was a sign of this fracture. Their proposals of fiscal austerity, privatization, openness to transnational capital, integration into economic and political circuits led by the United States and the EU, plus the deepening of the extractivist model through public-private partnerships that benefit local elites and foreign capital, are not only incapable of resolving the economic crisis – with galloping inflation of 20% to 25%, dollar scarcity, fuel shortages, and a critical increase in the cost of the basic food basket – but they also seek to offload its weight onto the working class. Meanwhile, Rodrigo Paz (PDC) and Manfred Reyes Villa (APB Súmate) competed for fourth place (6-8%). However, the most revealing data was the high percentage of apparent discontent, indicating between 10-14% null vote, 5% blank vote, and 13-14% undecided. This sector was not just a statistical unknown; it was the expression of an exhausted and depoliticized population, whose discontent, finding no revolutionary alternatives, had become the battlefield that the PDC knew how to capitalize on with a demagogic anti-corruption discourse, from every point of view.
Art. 166 of the Political Constitution of the State and Law 026 establish that only valid votes determine the result; null and blank votes are excluded from the percentage calculation to define winners or a runoff. The percentages for Paz (32.06%) and Quiroga (26.70%) are calculated on this reduced base, artificially inflating their relative weight. This distortion allowed both right-wing figures to access the second round. The voting intention for Andrónico Rodríguez (Popular Alliance) experienced a significant drop, from an initial peak of 14.2% in June to approximately 6% in the last polls before the election, finally achieving 8.51%. Meanwhile, Eduardo Del Castillo reached 3.17%, as the candidate for MAS-IPSP. The campaign for the null vote, far from being an 'act of resistance', ended up operating as a mechanism of self-destruction and fragmentation. By channelling popular discontent towards an electorally sterile option, Morales diluted the potential of his social base, a tactic that allowed the PDC to capitalize on the discontent of depoliticized popular sectors.
The problem transcends the electoral-circumstantial factor. During its two decades in government, MAS administered capitalism within the framework of what Álvaro García Linera called "Ando-Amazonic capitalism", a model that sought a more favourable articulation for an emerging national bourgeoisie within the global capitalist framework and in alliance and dependence on transnational capital, with a clientelist redistribution of rents. This way, it did not alter wage exploitation relations, nor had the intention of doing it. Simultaneously, it politically demobilized the social base and popular movement, emptying unions and social organizations of ideological content and, above all, removing their ideological and organic independence. The Communist Party leadership and much of its militancy fell prey to ideological deviations rooted in decades of social democratic governance. It is important to note that these were propagated by social "progressive" governments across Latin America and reformist supranational bodies such as the São Paulo Forum.
This inherent demobilization of all reformist projects created a sense of meaning and organizational vacuum among the working class, which was methodically occupied by other ideological instruments, notably evangelical churches offering community, moral certainty, and a project of individual advancement: the prosperity theology in a precarious world. The search for a reformed capitalism with a human face is the essence of all social democratic proposals, which aim to mitigate capitalism’s most brutal contradictions through redistributive policies (bonuses, subsidies) financed by the super exploitation of natural resources, while maintaining intact the wage exploitation and monopoly domination over strategic sectors.
The "Living Well" discourse and the so-called "Democratic and Cultural Revolution" operated empty of any anti-capitalist potential, becoming a framework for the Keynesian-liberal management of the economy of a pluri-national State, which remains bourgeois. MAS reduced class struggle to the electoral field. It made "intercultural democracy" the ultimate goal of the struggle, emptying democracy of its class content and hiding the fact that the State remains a class domination instrument in bourgeois hands. The government was the great mediator between capital (national and foreign) and the working class, always guaranteeing the benefit of the former; it defused social conflict through co-optation of leaders, who then acted as containment against proletarian rage and insubordination.
MAS’s greatest success and historical betrayal was the objective and subjective demobilization of its social base, because it put in place the idea that capitalism could be humanized through the State; it eliminated from the consciousness of broad popular sectors the need to autonomously organize and mobilize to replace the power of monopolies and the national bourgeoisie with that of the working class. This depoliticization of base organizations and alienation of workers is the perfect seedbed for the working classes to embrace libertarian and individualistic discourses. Struggles were no longer led by workers in mines, factories, and streets against capitalism but by sensationalist leaders in ministry corridors fighting for individual or group benefits, shifting from street class struggle to negotiations in government offices, corrupting trade unions leadership. Moreover, individual advancement through consumption was promoted alongside evangelical prosperity theology. Both logics reinforce individualism and destroy class consciousness and solidarity; if success is individual (by merit or divine blessing), so is failure, dismantling any structural analysis of class exploitation.
With the aim of maintaining a broad electoral base and neutralize conflicts, the MAS government used evangelical churches: they negotiated with their leaders, gave them influence and participation, even as members of their parliamentary bench. This legitimized and greatly empowered these sectors. Evo Morales himself recently acknowledged that Chi Hyun Chung—a South Korean-born Bolivian evangelical pastor, doctor, entrepreneur, presidential candidate in 2019 for PDC—and now Edman Lara, take an important percentage of his electorate. Although it was a short-term calculus for power management, in the long-term it strengthened an ideological rival within the popular field.
The victory of the Christian Democratic Party is the fruit of all the above. Its discourse, far from being mere curiosity, is the coherent political formulation of this rising counter-hegemony in Gramscian terms. Its economic proposal of "capitalism for all, not for a few" is the local version of the old petty-bourgeois illusion of capitalism without antagonisms, aiming to smooth the edges of an exploitative system while maintaining its essence intact. The key to its penetration into the popular field lies in its vice-presidential formula: Edman Lara, the ex-police captain who quickly rose to fame by denouncing corruption in the police and being suspended from the institution. For a depoliticized electorate tired of a corrupt political elite, Lara aims to represent citizens rising against the corrupt system. His support in rural and peri-urban areas shows how class discontent, lacking autonomous revolutionary course, is captured and redirected towards a foreign political project, diametrically opposed to working class interests.
The elections of August do not only represent a government change; they manifest a profound political and ideological defeat of reformist "progressive" social democracy against capital. Social democracy is responsible for the current ideological subjugation of the working class and peasantry to the reactionary conservatism embodied by Paz and Lara.
The triumph of Rodrigo Paz and Edman Lara with the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) is not a conjunctural accident, but rather the result of the structural convergence between the exhaustion of social-democratic reformism, which ideologically disarmed the working class, and the rise of a new conservative power block, articulated around a national-religious, anti-statist (but not anti-capitalist) and right-wing populist discourse, which knew how to capitalize on discontent and offer an illusory salvation within the frameworks of capital.
Pre-election polls by firms like Ipsos CIESMORI and Captura Consulting expressed the profound organic crisis and the incapacity of the bourgeoisie to unify a hegemonic project. A "technical tie" between Samuel Doria Medina (National Unity) who had around 21%, and Jorge 'Tuto' Quiroga (Free Alliance), with 20%, both clear representatives of the factions of financial capital and the traditional agro-exporting capital, was a sign of this fracture. Their proposals of fiscal austerity, privatization, openness to transnational capital, integration into economic and political circuits led by the United States and the EU, plus the deepening of the extractivist model through public-private partnerships that benefit local elites and foreign capital, are not only incapable of resolving the economic crisis – with galloping inflation of 20% to 25%, dollar scarcity, fuel shortages, and a critical increase in the cost of the basic food basket – but they also seek to offload its weight onto the working class. Meanwhile, Rodrigo Paz (PDC) and Manfred Reyes Villa (APB Súmate) competed for fourth place (6-8%). However, the most revealing data was the high percentage of apparent discontent, indicating between 10-14% null vote, 5% blank vote, and 13-14% undecided. This sector was not just a statistical unknown; it was the expression of an exhausted and depoliticized population, whose discontent, finding no revolutionary alternatives, had become the battlefield that the PDC knew how to capitalize on with a demagogic anti-corruption discourse, from every point of view.
Art. 166 of the Political Constitution of the State and Law 026 establish that only valid votes determine the result; null and blank votes are excluded from the percentage calculation to define winners or a runoff. The percentages for Paz (32.06%) and Quiroga (26.70%) are calculated on this reduced base, artificially inflating their relative weight. This distortion allowed both right-wing figures to access the second round. The voting intention for Andrónico Rodríguez (Popular Alliance) experienced a significant drop, from an initial peak of 14.2% in June to approximately 6% in the last polls before the election, finally achieving 8.51%. Meanwhile, Eduardo Del Castillo reached 3.17%, as the candidate for MAS-IPSP. The campaign for the null vote, far from being an 'act of resistance', ended up operating as a mechanism of self-destruction and fragmentation. By channelling popular discontent towards an electorally sterile option, Morales diluted the potential of his social base, a tactic that allowed the PDC to capitalize on the discontent of depoliticized popular sectors.
The problem transcends the electoral-circumstantial factor. During its two decades in government, MAS administered capitalism within the framework of what Álvaro García Linera called "Ando-Amazonic capitalism", a model that sought a more favourable articulation for an emerging national bourgeoisie within the global capitalist framework and in alliance and dependence on transnational capital, with a clientelist redistribution of rents. This way, it did not alter wage exploitation relations, nor had the intention of doing it. Simultaneously, it politically demobilized the social base and popular movement, emptying unions and social organizations of ideological content and, above all, removing their ideological and organic independence. The Communist Party leadership and much of its militancy fell prey to ideological deviations rooted in decades of social democratic governance. It is important to note that these were propagated by social "progressive" governments across Latin America and reformist supranational bodies such as the São Paulo Forum.
This inherent demobilization of all reformist projects created a sense of meaning and organizational vacuum among the working class, which was methodically occupied by other ideological instruments, notably evangelical churches offering community, moral certainty, and a project of individual advancement: the prosperity theology in a precarious world. The search for a reformed capitalism with a human face is the essence of all social democratic proposals, which aim to mitigate capitalism’s most brutal contradictions through redistributive policies (bonuses, subsidies) financed by the super exploitation of natural resources, while maintaining intact the wage exploitation and monopoly domination over strategic sectors.
The "Living Well" discourse and the so-called "Democratic and Cultural Revolution" operated empty of any anti-capitalist potential, becoming a framework for the Keynesian-liberal management of the economy of a pluri-national State, which remains bourgeois. MAS reduced class struggle to the electoral field. It made "intercultural democracy" the ultimate goal of the struggle, emptying democracy of its class content and hiding the fact that the State remains a class domination instrument in bourgeois hands. The government was the great mediator between capital (national and foreign) and the working class, always guaranteeing the benefit of the former; it defused social conflict through co-optation of leaders, who then acted as containment against proletarian rage and insubordination.
MAS’s greatest success and historical betrayal was the objective and subjective demobilization of its social base, because it put in place the idea that capitalism could be humanized through the State; it eliminated from the consciousness of broad popular sectors the need to autonomously organize and mobilize to replace the power of monopolies and the national bourgeoisie with that of the working class. This depoliticization of base organizations and alienation of workers is the perfect seedbed for the working classes to embrace libertarian and individualistic discourses. Struggles were no longer led by workers in mines, factories, and streets against capitalism but by sensationalist leaders in ministry corridors fighting for individual or group benefits, shifting from street class struggle to negotiations in government offices, corrupting trade unions leadership. Moreover, individual advancement through consumption was promoted alongside evangelical prosperity theology. Both logics reinforce individualism and destroy class consciousness and solidarity; if success is individual (by merit or divine blessing), so is failure, dismantling any structural analysis of class exploitation.
With the aim of maintaining a broad electoral base and neutralize conflicts, the MAS government used evangelical churches: they negotiated with their leaders, gave them influence and participation, even as members of their parliamentary bench. This legitimized and greatly empowered these sectors. Evo Morales himself recently acknowledged that Chi Hyun Chung—a South Korean-born Bolivian evangelical pastor, doctor, entrepreneur, presidential candidate in 2019 for PDC—and now Edman Lara, take an important percentage of his electorate. Although it was a short-term calculus for power management, in the long-term it strengthened an ideological rival within the popular field.
The victory of the Christian Democratic Party is the fruit of all the above. Its discourse, far from being mere curiosity, is the coherent political formulation of this rising counter-hegemony in Gramscian terms. Its economic proposal of "capitalism for all, not for a few" is the local version of the old petty-bourgeois illusion of capitalism without antagonisms, aiming to smooth the edges of an exploitative system while maintaining its essence intact. The key to its penetration into the popular field lies in its vice-presidential formula: Edman Lara, the ex-police captain who quickly rose to fame by denouncing corruption in the police and being suspended from the institution. For a depoliticized electorate tired of a corrupt political elite, Lara aims to represent citizens rising against the corrupt system. His support in rural and peri-urban areas shows how class discontent, lacking autonomous revolutionary course, is captured and redirected towards a foreign political project, diametrically opposed to working class interests.
The elections of August do not only represent a government change; they manifest a profound political and ideological defeat of reformist "progressive" social democracy against capital. Social democracy is responsible for the current ideological subjugation of the working class and peasantry to the reactionary conservatism embodied by Paz and Lara.
Camila Azeñas is responsible of International Relations of the National Executive Committee of the Communist Youth of Bolivia (JCB)
