By Gabriel Pereira
Bolivia will face its first-ever presidential runoff in October. Drawing on Santiago Anria’s recent article in the Journal of Democracy, this piece argues that the collapse of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) is a crucial factor behind this unprecedented scenario, alongside the country’s economic crisis and the reorganization of the right.
On 17 August, Bolivia voted in its most unsettled election in decades. The results pushed the country into its first-ever presidential runoff, scheduled for 19 October, between Rodrigo Paz Pereira of the Christian Democratic Party and former president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga. The outcome was surprising not only because Paz emerged ahead of better-known rivals, but also because the null vote, urged by former president Evo Morales in protest of his disqualification, reached a historic 19 percent. As Santiago Anria argues in a recent Journal of Democracy article, this unprecedented scenario cannot be understood without considering the collapse of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS). Once hegemonic, the MAS’s fragmentation is the essential condition that made Bolivia’s runoff possible.
What makes this runoff truly extraordinary lies not in its procedural novelty, but in who is competing in it. Two right-wing candidates now vie for power—a scenario unthinkable during the nearly two decades of MAS dominance. Analysts describe this moment as the end of the national-popular cycle inaugurated by Morales in 2005, when indigenous and popular sectors gained unprecedented access to power. Instead of reaffirming that hegemony, the MAS arrived splintered: President Luis Arce’s official faction sought to defend the government’s legacy, Andrónico Rodríguez, the Senate President, positioned himself as the face of renewal, while Morales mobilized a disciplined base from outside the ballot box. That Bolivia now faces a runoff between two right-wing contenders illustrates just how far the political pendulum has swung from the era of MAS dominance.
That Bolivia now faces a runoff between two right-wing contenders illustrates just how far the political pendulum has swung from the era of MAS dominance.
The economic crisis looms large in explaining this shift. According to various reports, inflation surged to 24 percent in June, food and fuel shortages triggered widespread protests across major cities, and long queues at petrol stations became a symbol of state failure. Bolivia’s dwindling natural gas reserves—once the backbone of its export economy—produced a shortage of dollars, undermined subsidies, and fueled a thriving black market. President Arce, once celebrated as the architect of the Morales-era boom, now faces blame for deficits, shrinking reserves, and policy paralysis. Analysts note that the exhaustion of the hydrocarbon model and the lack of investment in exploration made prosperity unsustainable. On the surface, the runoff can be read as a verdict on economic mismanagement and declining living standards, which eroded the MAS’s credibility and opened space for alternatives.
On the surface, the runoff can be read as a verdict on economic mismanagement and declining living standards, which eroded the MAS’s credibility and opened space for alternatives.
Another factor often cited to explain the runoff is the reorganization of Bolivia’s political right. The two leading contenders embody different faces of this camp. Paz presents himself as a moderate reformer, promising decentralization, anti-corruption measures, and “capitalism for all, not just a few.” His candidacy capitalized on voter fatigue with the MAS–anti-MAS divide, appealing to disenchanted middle- and lower-class voters. In contrast, Quiroga, a former president who once served under General Hugo Banzer, represents continuity with Bolivia’s pre-Morales establishment. Their presence in the runoff reveals both return and renewal within the right: the comeback of an old guard alongside the rise of a younger, pragmatic figure who claims to offer something different. As Pablo Stefanoni notes, this duality recalls the volatile party politics of the 1990s, when fragmented coalitions and shifting alliances defined Bolivian democracy.
Yet explanations centered on economic decline, or the reorganization of the right only go so far. They do not fully capture why Bolivia has arrived at its first runoff. As Santiago Anria argues in his recent Journal of Democracy article, the essential condition for this unprecedented scenario is the collapse of the MAS itself. Once a fusion of social movements and party politics that anchored Bolivia’s democratic order, the MAS has imploded into warring factions. Morales, Arce, and Rodríguez each claimed to embody the party’s legacy, but their rivalry hollowed out cohesion and paralyzed institutions. The result was not just weakened governance but electoral fragmentation: multiple MAS candidacies pulling in different directions and Morales urging a null vote that reached nearly one-fifth of the electorate.
Anria’s analysis invites us to see the runoff between two right-wing contenders not as an isolated shift, but as the outcome of this internal collapse.He draws on Dankwart Rustow’s classic idea of democratization emerging from a “family feud” among elites. In Bolivia, however, the MAS’s intra-family conflict has proved destructive rather than generative. Instead of producing new democratic rules, the feud between Morales and Arce dismantled existing ones, turning Congress into a site of sabotage and the judiciary into a partisan weapon. What began as an internal succession struggle metastasized into a broader crisis of representation, leaving social bases divided and large sectors politically orphaned.
The unprecedented runoff, then, is not only the result of a failing economy or a resurgent right. It is, above all, the consequence of a hegemonic party collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions, tearing itself apart in a family feud that has transformed Bolivia’s political landscape.
Bolivia’s first presidential runoff marks both rupture and uncertainty. On the surface, it channels public frustration over economic decline and the reorganization of the right. Yet, as Anria shows, the deeper story lies in the implosion of MAS—the party that once defined Bolivia’s political order. Its internal feud eroded the very foundations of that order, opening the door to an outcome that would once have seemed unthinkable. The paradox is stark: change has arrived not through renewed pluralism, but through a political family tearing itself apart. Anria’s insight suggests that Bolivia’s historic runoff is less a triumph of democratic renewal than the result of a hegemonic party collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions.
Gabriel Pereira is editor at the Review of Democracy.
This article is published under the sole responsibility of the author, with editorial oversight. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial team or the CEU Democracy Institute.
