Polls opened in Bolivia for presidential and congressional elections that could spell the end of the Andean nation’s long-dominant leftist party and see a right-wing government elected for the first time in over two decades.

The election on Sunday (August 17, 2025) is one of the most consequential for Bolivia in recent times — and one of the most unpredictable.

Even at this late stage, a remarkable 30% or so of voters remain undecided. Polls show the two leading right-wing candidates, multimillionaire business owner Samuel Doria Medina and former President Jorge Fernando “Tuto” Quiroga, locked in a virtual dead heat.

Many undecided voters

But a right-wing victory isn’t assured. Many longtime voters for the governing Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party, now shattered by infighting, live in rural areas and tend to be undercounted in polling.

With the nation’s worst economic crisis in four decades leaving Bolivians waiting for hours in fuel lines, struggling to find subsidised bread and squeezed by double-digit inflation, the opposition candidates are billing the race as a chance to alter the country’s destiny.

“I have rarely, if ever, seen a situational tinderbox with as many sparks ready to ignite,” Daniel Lansberg-Rodriguez, founding partner of Aurora Macro Strategies, a New York-based advisory firm, writes in a memo. Breaking the MAS party’s monopoly on political power, he adds, pushes “the country into uncharted political waters amid rising polarisation, severe economic fragility and a widening rural–urban divide.”

Bolivia could follow a rightward trend.

The outcome will determine whether Bolivia — a nation of about 12 million people with the largest lithium reserves on Earth and crucial deposits of rare earth minerals — follows a growing trend in Latin America, where right-wing leaders like Argentina’s libertarian Javier Milei, Ecuador’s strongman Daniel Noboa and El Salvador’s conservative populist Nayib Bukele have surged in popularity.

A right-wing government in Bolivia could trigger a major geopolitical realignment for a country now allied with Venezuela’s socialist-inspired government and world powers such as China, Russia and Iran.

Conservative candidates vow to restore U.S. relations.

Mr. Doria Medina and Mr. Quiroga have praised the Trump administration and vowed to restore ties with the United States, ruptured in 2008 when charismatic, long-serving former President Evo Morales expelled the American ambassador.

The right-wing front-runners have also expressed interest in doing business with Israel, which has no diplomatic relations with Bolivia, and called for foreign private companies to invest in the country and develop its rich natural resources.

After storming to office in 2006 at the start of the commodities boom, Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, nationalised the nation’s oil and gas industry, using the lush profits to reduce poverty, expand infrastructure and improve the lives of the rural poor.

After three consecutive presidential terms, as well as a contentious bid for an unprecedented fourth in 2019 that set off popular unrest and led to his ouster, Morales has been barred from this race by Bolivia’s constitutional court.

His ally-turned-rival, President Luis Arce, withdrew his candidacy for the MAS on account of his plummeting popularity and nominated his Senior Minister, Eduardo del Castillo.

As the party splintered, Andronico Rodriguez, the 36-year-old president of the senate who hails from the same union of coca farmers as Morales, launched his bid.

Ex-president Morales urges supporters to deface ballots

Rather than back the candidate widely considered his heir, Mr. Morales, holed up in his tropical stronghold and evading an arrest warrant on charges related to his relationship with a 15-year-old girl, has urged his supporters to deface their ballots or leave them blank.

Voting is mandatory in Bolivia, where some 7.9 million Bolivians are eligible to vote.

Mr. Doria Medina and Mr. Quiroga, familiar faces in Bolivian politics who both served in past neoliberal governments and have run for president three times before, have struggled to stir up interest as voter angst runs high.

“There’s enthusiasm for change but no enthusiasm for the candidates,” said Eddy Abasto, 44, a Tupperware vendor in Bolivia’s capital of La Paz torn between voting for Doria Medina and Quiroga. “It’s always the same, those in power live happily spending the country’s money, and we suffer.”

Conservative candidates say austerity is needed.

Mr. Doria Medina and Mr. Quiroga have warned of the need for a painful fiscal adjustment, including the elimination of Bolivia’s generous food and fuel subsidies, to save the nation from insolvency. Some analysts caution that this risks sparking social unrest.

“A victory for either right-wing candidate could have grave repercussions for Bolivia’s Indigenous and impoverished communities,” said Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network, a Bolivian research group. “Both candidates could bolster security forces and right-wing para-state groups, paving the way for violent crackdowns on protests expected to erupt over the foreign exploitation of lithium and drastic austerity measures.”

All 130 seats in Bolivia’s Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Parliament, are up for grabs, along with 36 in the Senate, the upper house.

If, as is widely expected, no one receives more than 50% of the vote, or 40% of the vote with a lead of 10% points, the top two candidates will compete in a runoff on October 19 for the first time since Bolivia’s 1982 return to democracy.

Published – August 17, 2025 07:09 pm IST

A British woman has died during a ‘wellness retreat’ in the remote Bolivian rainforest of South America. Maureen Rainford, a mother of three, consumed ‘ayahuasca’ — a supposed wonder plant-based psychedelic drug but complained of feeling ill, 10 minutes after consuming it. Ms Rainord soon started experiencing breathing troubles and despite attempts to resuscitate her, died an hour later, according to a report in The Telegraph. A spokesperson for the Ayahuasca and San Pedro Pisatahua Retreat said the death was “due to a medical emergency” and that it was not related to Ayahuasca.

According to the GoFundMe page, set up by the family, Ms Rainford had been looking forward to the retreat as she wanted ‘detox’ from the noise of London and work for 10 days. “Maureen’s love of travel and her curiosity took her to the Bolivian Amazon to detox from the noise of London and work for 10 days,” the family said.

“It was a trip she was eagerly looking forward to, sharing her excitement with everyone with her usual vibrancy and zest for life and travel…a time for reflection and personal development.”

Ms Rainford’s body was flown back to the UK after her daughter, Rochel, 32, approached the British consulate. An autopsy confirmed that Ms Rainford died due to a heart attack.

Ms Rochel said after her mother’s death, she wanted to raise “awareness about these places” for people who were “tempted by glassy brochures selling a dream”.

“There should be a trained medic on standby when hallucinogenic drugs are being handed out in a remote area,” she said.

Also read | Viral Post Claims 8 Silicon Valley CEOs Went On “Psychedelic Trips”, Quit Their Jobs

What is ayahuasca?

Traditionally consumed by shamans and healers in the Amazon River basin that includes countries such as Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia. The main active chemical in ayahuasca is a substance called dimethyltryptamine (DMT) which has a structure that looks similar to serotonin – an important brain chemical that regulates mood, emotions and digestion.

In the last few years, the use of ayahuasca has gained prominence in popular culture with retreats, similar to one Ms Rainford attended, being thronged by western tourists, looking to expand their consciousness through ego death and heal their inner selves.

However, in many cases, consuming ayahuasca causes bouts of vomiting, sweating and/or diarrhoea. The hallucinogenic effects kick in 20 to 60 minutes after the tea has been consumed. 

Former President Evo Morales of Bolivia claimed he survived an assassination attempt on Sunday (October 28, 2024) after unidentified men opened fire on his car. He was not injured in the alleged attack that quickly became the latest flashpoint in a power struggle between the ex-leader and his protégé-turned-rival, current President Luis Arce.

Mr. Morales, 65, blamed President Arce’s government for the outburst of violence, saying it was part of a coordinated campaign by Bolivian authorities to sideline him from politics. The incident coincides with a bitter rift at the highest rungs of the ruling Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS. Mr. Morales and Mr. Arce, his former economy minister, are fighting to lead the party into next year’s elections.

“This is not an isolated incident,” the Morales-aligned bloc of the divided MAS party said in a statement. “It’s clear evidence that we are facing a fascist government that does not hesitate to attack the life of former President Evo Morales.”

The statement said that two vehicles with heavily armed men dressed in black ambushed Mr. Morales’ convoy. Bullets whizzed just “centimeters” from the ex-p\[resident’s head, it said. Video posted on the website of Mr. Morales’ radio station showed helicopters buzzing over an airstrip where the incident occurred.

President Arce condemned the attack and requested an investigation.

“The exercise of any violent practice in politics must be condemned and clarified,” Mr. Arce wrote on social media platform X. “Problems are not resolved by trying to kill people or by partisan speculation.”

Deputy Security Minister Roberto Rios insisted that police had not acted against the former president. He said authorities were investigating a theory that Morales had staged “a possible self-attack,” citing allegations swirling within the government that Morales had directed the assault on himself to help his own political fortunes.

“Morales is seeking confrontation and violence on the streets for political interests and to achieve impunity,” Rios told reporters.

The flurry of pointed accusations threatened to ignite Bolivia’s political tinderbox and plunge the cash-strapped Andean nation of 12 million further into turmoil.

Mr. Morales alleged the shots were fired while he was being driven in Bolivia’s coca leaf-growing region of Chapare, his rural stronghold whose residents have blockaded the main east-west highway for the past two weeks in a show of defiance and solidarity after new legal threats against Morales emerged. Last month, local prosecutors summoned Morales to testify in a revived child abuse case that the former president dismissed as politically motivated.

The roadblocks and rallies over the past days have choked off major cities and disrupted supply lines, raising fears of food and gasoline shortages.

Under pressure to clear the highways, Mr. Arce’s government on Friday deployed thousands of security officers in a failed attempt to break up the blockades by force.

Officials said protesters drove away police by hurling explosives in clashes that left 14 officers injured, while 40 demonstrators were arrested. Morales said members of a far-right paramilitary group pulled his lawyer, Nelson Cox, out of his jeep and beat him.

The events revived fears of a return to the political violence of 2019, when 36 people were killed in violent turmoil that engulfed the country after allegations of electoral fraud sparked an uprising that ended when Mr. Morales resigned and fled.

In the years since, the leftist icon, who served as Bolivia’s first Indigenous President from 2006-2019, has made a stunning comeback, drawing thousands to his rallies across the country.

As Mr. Morales’ popularity has grown, so, too, has the government backlash. Arce on Saturday said that Mr. Morales poses “a serious threat not only to Bolivia, but to stability and security in our region.”

That the political rivalry between the erstwhile allies could morph so quickly into mayhem on the streets is a measure of how brittle Bolivia’s democracy remains years after Morales’ ouster, decried by his supporters as a coup.

On Sunday, Mr. Morales went on his weekly radio show to recount the attack on his convoy, appearing unscathed and calm. He told the radio host that as he was leaving home, hooded men fired at least 14 shots at his car, wounding his driver.

“Arce is going to go down as the worst president in history,” Morales said, describing the attack as part of a conspiracy by Arce’s government to drive him out of politics.“Shooting a former president is the last straw.”

As cellphone footage spread online showing Morales’ driver bleeding from the back of his head, his supporters called for mass rallies to show their anger. In the video taken from inside the car, Mr. Morales can be seen in the passenger’s seat holding a phone to his ear as the vehicle swerves and a woman’s voice shrieks, “Duck!”

The footage shows the car’s front windshield cracked by at least three bullets and its rear windshield shattered. Morales can be heard saying, “Papacho has been shot in the head,” into his phone, referring to his driver.

Even before the shots were fired, the country’s political atmosphere was rife with personal attacks and at times violence.

In June there was an attempted coup by a rogue general who later accused Arce of orchestrating the uprising to boost his own flagging popularity. Arce denies being behind the coup.

Last month, in a show of political strength, Mr. Morales and his supporters set off on a highly anticipated dayslong march to La Paz, the capital, in an effort to pressure Mr. Arce to address dire shortages of fuel and dollars.

Imported goods are scarce. Prices are rising. Drivers wait for hours to fill up at gas stations.

The September march, which also called for authorities to let Mr. Morales run in the 2025 presidential contest despite the constitutional court barring him, devolved into street clashes with counter-protesters.

Earlier this month, Bolivian prosecutors launched an investigation into accusations that Mr. Morales fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl in 2016, classifying their relationship as statutory rape. Mr. Morales has refused to testify in court.

Since reports circulated of a possible warrant against him, the ex-president has been holed up in the Chapare region, in central Bolivia, where loyalist coca growers have kept watch to prevent his arrest.

Bolivia’s government on Thursday announced that a total of 17 people have been arrested over their alleged involvement in the attempted coup that shook the economically troubled country the day before.

The South American nation of 12 million watched in shock and bewilderment Wednesday as military forces appeared to turn on the government of President Luis Arce, seizing control of the capital’s main square with armoured vehicles, crashing a tank into the presidential palace and unleashing tear gas on protesters. In the following hours, the army general who led the attempted coup, Juan José Zúñiga, and an alleged co-conspirator, former navy Vice Adm. Juan Arnez Salvador, were both arrested and remain in custody.

Senior Cabinet member Eduardo del Castillo did not elaborate on the other 15 people who have been arrested. He said one was a civilian identified as Aníbal Aguilar Gómez, whom he called the “mastermind” of the thwarted coup.

Del Castillo said the government was pursuing more suspects and that the alleged conspirators began plotting in May.

Supporters of Bolivia’s president rallied outside his palace on Thursday, giving some political breathing room to the embattled leader as they chanted pro-democracy slogans.

Riot police guarded the palace doors and Arce — who has struggled to manage the country’s shortages of foreign currency and fuel — condemned Zúñiga.

Analysts say that the surge of public support for Arce, even if fleeting, provides him with a much-needed reprieve from the country’s economic quagmire and political turmoil. The president is locked in a deepening rivalry with the popular former President Evo Morales, his erstwhile ally who has threatened to challenge Arce in 2025 primaries.

“The president’s management has been very bad, there are no dollars, there is no petrol,” said La Paz-based political analyst Paul Coca. “Yesterday’s military move is going to help his image a bit, but it’s no solution.” Some protesters gathered outside the police station where the former army general was being detained, shouting that he should go to jail. “It’s a shame what Zúñiga did,” said 47-year-old Dora Quispe, one of the demonstrators. “We are in a democracy, not a dictatorship.” Before his arrest late Wednesday, Zúñiga alleged without providing evidence that Arce had ordered the general to carry out the coup attempt in a ruse to boost the president’s popularity. That fueled a frenzy of speculation about what really happened, and opposition senators and government critics echoed the accusations, calling the mutiny a “self-coup” — a claim strongly denied by Arce’s government.

In La Paz’s main Plaza Murillo, supporters addressed Arce, yelling “Lucho, you are not alone!” as fireworks exploded overhead. Lucho, a common nickname for Luis, also means “fight” in Spanish.

Some Bolivians said they believed Gen. Zúñiga’s allegations on national TV that the coup attempt was a hoax.

“They are playing with the intelligence of the people, because nobody believes that it was a real coup,” said 48-year-old lawyer Evaristo Mamani.

Lawmakers and former officials also bolstered the allegations. “This has been a setup,” said Carlos Romero, a former official in the Morales government. “Zúñiga followed the script as he was ordered.” Soon after the military action was underway, it became clear that any attempted takeover had no meaningful political support. The rebellion ended bloodlessly by the end of the business day. Arce named a new army commander, who immediately ordered troops to retreat.

“Here we are, firm, in the presidential palace, to confront any coup attempt,” Arce said after facing down Zúñiga. Hundreds of the president’s supporters surged into streets surrounding the palace Wednesday night, singing the national anthem and cheering for Arce.

Authorities swiftly arrested Zúñiga as his soldiers retreated from central La Paz.

The U.S. deputy secretary of state for management, Rich Verma, condemned Zuniga’s actions and speaking in Paraguay on Thursday noted that “democracy remains fragile in our hemisphere.” The short-lived mutiny followed months of mounting tensions between Arce and ex-President Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous president. Morales has staged a dramatic political comeback since mass protests and a deadly crackdown prompted him to resign and flee in 2019 — a military-backed ouster that his supporters decry as a coup.

Morales has vowed to run against Arce in 2025 elections despite a constitutional court ruling that said he was ineligible because he had already served. The possibility of Morales running again has rattled Arce, whose popularity has plunged as the country’s foreign currency reserves dwindle, its natural gas exports plummet and its currency peg to the U.S. dollar collapses.

The cash crunch has ramped up pressure on Arce to scrap food and fuel subsidies that have put a strain on state finances, a combustible move ahead of elections.

Defense Minister Edmundo Novillo said Wednesday’s turmoil had its roots in a private meeting Tuesday in which Arce dismissed Zuñiga over the army chief’s threats to arrest Morales if he proceeded to join the 2025 race. Arce has also denied the legitimacy of Morales’ presidential bid.

In their meeting, Zuñiga gave officials no indication he was preparing to seize power, Novillo said.

“He admitted that he had committed some excesses,” he said of Zuñiga. “We said goodbye in the most friendly way, with hugs. Zuñiga said that he would always be at the side of the president.” Mere hours later, panic gripped the capital of La Paz. Tailed by armored vehicles and supporters, Zuñiga burst into government headquarters and declared the armed forces sought “to restore Bolivia’s democracy.” The influx of soldiers sent Bolivians into a frenzy, thronging ATMs, queuing outside gas stations and ransacking grocery stores. By one count, Bolivia has had more than 190 coup attempts and revolutions since its 1825 independence.

The country’s fragmented opposition rejected the coup before it was clear it had failed. Former interim President Jeanine Áñez, detained for her role in Morales’ 2019 ouster, said that soldiers sought to “destroy the constitutional order,” but appealed to both Arce and Morales not to run in the 2025 elections.

Santa Cruz Gov. Luis Fernando Camacho, also detained for allegedly orchestrating a coup in 2019, demanded answers from Arce’s government on Thursday.

“Was it a media spectacle put on by the government itself, as General Zúñiga says? Was it just some military madness? Was it simply another example of lack of control?” he wrote on social media platform X.

Zúñiga’s answer came as a shock, telling reporters that Arce had asked him directly to storm the palace and bring armored vehicles into downtown La Paz.

“The president told me: The situation is very screwed up, very critical. It is necessary to prepare something to raise my popularity,’” Zúñiga alleged the Bolivian leader told him.

Bolivian officials have denied Zúñiga’s claims, insisting the general was lying to justify his actions. Prosecutors said they’d seek the maximum sentence of 15 to 20 years in prison for Zúñiga on charges of “attacking the constitution.” Political experts struggling to comprehend the reasons behind Wednesday’s turmoil.

“This is the weirdest coup attempt I have ever seen,” said Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network, a Bolivia-based research group. “Bolivia’s democracy remains very fragile, and definitely a great deal more fragile today than it was yesterday.” (AP) GSP

Minister of the Presidency Maria Nela Prada also announced the country was sending humanitarian aid to Gaza

November 01, 2023 05:47 pm | Updated 06:38 pm IST – La Paz

The government of leftist Luis Arce is the first in Latin America to cut ties with Israel since the divisive conflict erupted with the Hamas attacks on October 7, which Israeli authorities say killed more than 1,400 people.

Israel responded on Wednesday by slamming Bolivia’s move as “a surrender to terrorism.”

“By taking this step, the Bolivian government is aligning itself with the Hamas terrorist organisation,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat said in a statement.

Bolivia only announced it was restoring ties with Israel in 2019, a decade after they were cut over previous attacks on the Gaza Strip.

Hamas hailed Bolivia’s decision on Tuesday, saying it “holds it in high esteem” while urging Arab countries who have normalised their relations with Israel to do the same.

The leaders of both Colombia and Chile also spoke out Tuesday against the Israeli offensive on Hamas, which the Hamas-controlled health ministry says has now killed more than 8,500 Palestinians — two-thirds of them women and children.

“I have decided to recall our ambassador to Israel (Margarita Manjarrez) for consultation. If Israel does not stop the massacre of the Palestinian people, we cannot be there,” Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Chile, which has the largest Palestinian population outside the Arab world, said Tuesday it was recalling its ambassador to Israel in protest against Israel’s “unacceptable violations of international humanitarian law.”

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council, has urged a ceasefire.

He said the “terrorist attack” by Palestinian militants against Israel did not justify killing “millions of innocents” in Gaza.

“Just because Hamas committed a terrorist attack against Israel doesn’t mean Israel has to kill millions of innocents,” he said in a live address on social media.