Andean Group - June 2026

Bolivia’s President Rodrigo Paz has been facing mass protests across the country since mid-May, with trade unions, indigenous organisations, miners, and peasant farmers joining forces to demand his resignation. On 20 June Paz took the escalatory step of declaring a state of exception and sending in troops to clear roadblocks that have ground the country to a halt, following weeks of growing pressure from congress and the business sector.

The protests, which began as a general campaign for the reversal of the government’s conservative economic reforms, have morphed into an uncompromising call for President Paz’s resignation and the convening of general elections. The unrest is being led by the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB), the main workers’ union, and has also been inspired in large part by former president Evo Morales (2006-2019) from his hideaway in Chapare, Cochabamba department.

Hundreds of Morales supporters arrived in La Paz on 17 May at the end of a five-day march from Caracollo, Oruro department. They joined ongoing demonstrations by artisanal miners who were protesting shortages of fuel and explosives, and over the following days there were reports of looting, vehicles being set alight, and dynamite being detonated in the streets of the capital. This also sparked a nationwide intensification of a roadblock campaign that had already been running intermittently for months over various issues – in particular the distribution of contaminated fuel by state hydrocarbon company YPFB.

The government has attempted to negotiate an end to the protests but is struggling to make headway given that Paz’s resignation, just seven months after he took office, is the demonstrators’ main demand. Meanwhile, the protests have occasionally turned violent. The government has sounded the alarm over the use of firearms by some of those manning the barricades on the highway network. On 6 June six police officers were injured – four of them suffering gunshot wounds – during an attempt to clear a roadblock in San Julián municipality, in the eastern department of Santa Cruz, according to the department’s police commander David Gómez. One of the officers was shot in the head and was in a grave condition, Gómez said.

The roadblock was temporarily cleared before protesters again blocked traffic. This situation is being repeated, albeit generally in a less violent manner, in dozens of locations around the country, presenting a huge challenge for the authorities. As of 9 June there were 93 roadblocks around Bolivia, according to the national highway administrator (ABC), affecting six of the country’s nine departments, with 27 in Cochabamba, 21 in La Paz, 18 in Oruro, 15 in Potosí, 10 in Chuquisaca, and two in Santa Cruz. In the worst affected departments there are growing concerns about the availability of food, fuel, and medicines.

With his presidency hanging in the balance and negotiations having so far failed to make any headway, Paz spent weeks resisting using the most powerful weapon in his arsenal – the ability to declare a state of exception that would enable him to deploy troops to restore order. He finally did so on 20 June, under mounting pressure from the right-wing parties that control congress, and from the business community – particularly in the conservative bastion of Santa Cruz.

Flanked by his cabinet ministers, Paz said that he has “instructed the Bolivian police and the armed forces to carry out the necessary actions to re-establish freedom of movement”. He said that “to those who are still manning barricades, I say this to you clearly: there’s still time to voluntarily desist – if you have legitimate demands, the doors of dialogue will remain open as they have been since day one”. He said that violence by protesters will be punished “with the full rigour of the law and all the legitimate force that the constitution and democracy grant the state to protect its citizens”. The state of exception, which swiftly attained the necessary support from a two-thirds majority in congress, will last for a maximum of 90 days.

Paz had long been reluctant to use these powers, no doubt fearing that this could lead to an escalating spiral of violence. Morales warned on social media that a militarised response to the protests would be “suicidal” for the president, and called upon him to convene fresh elections “to avoid conflicts with deaths and injuries”. It had, however, become clear that the usual police response was insufficient to deal with the scale of protests taking place.

Paz has received words of support from many governments in the region on both the left and right. The US, whose deputy secretary of state Christopher Landau claimed on 19 May that a coup was underway against the Bolivian government, has promised emergency aid to help supply basic goods and support the healthcare system. Bolivia has also been supported by an air bridge from Argentina, which is flying in food and other essential supplies on a military transport plane, while the presidents of Brazil, Chile, and Peru have also committed to sending humanitarian aid.

Yet even if food and other essential supplies can be transported to affected areas by air, a failure to end the roadblocks either through force or via negotiations is likely to result in more deaths. According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), of the seven people who had died in the protests as of 2 June, four died after being unable to access medical treatment due to the roadblocks, while one was shot during a police operation and two died in unclear circumstances.

Morales remains a potent force

The protests are the latest reminder that Morales remains a huge and disruptive political force in Bolivia despite having been confined since October 2024 to Chapare, his political stronghold, where he has lived under the protection of his coca union to avoid arrest on human trafficking charges. It is perhaps no coincidence that Morales announced the march on La Paz in the same week that his trial was due to start regarding his alleged relationship with an underage girl. Morales did not attend the first day of his trial in Tarija on 11 May, resulting in it being postponed, and he remains the subject of an arrest warrant. As was the case under Paz’s predecessor, Luis Arce (2020-2025), the authorities have made no attempt to enforce that warrant for fear of enraging Morales’ many devoted followers.

The latest unrest has made clear the risks of angering Morales’ supporters, but it has also underscored the threat he poses from Chapare, and raised the question of how this will be dealt with going forwards. Having failed to overturn presidential term limits that barred him from participating in last year’s election, Morales encouraged his supporters to spoil their ballots. Over 20% of voters did so in the election’s first round, prompting speculation at the time that a faction of the left was effectively checking out of the democratic process and might instead seek to make its voice heard through protests. This is exactly the situation that has been unfolding in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, things took another worrying turn for Paz on 2 June when Carlos Alarcón, a deputy for the allied centre-right Unidad party, floated the idea of a recall referendum as a way out of the crisis. Alarcón suggested that the president, vice president, and legislators should all face such a referendum, with elections to be convened if that is the wish of voters. Alarcón noted that Morales made the same move himself back in 2008, to defuse tensions over his constitutional reform plans which were generating significant opposition at the time.