Since gaining independence in 1825, Bolivia has endured over 190 coups, 36 of them since 1945. Protests had begun over economic grievances, cast as a revolt against “neoliberalism,” but turned violent only when supporters of Evo Morales, the former socialist president and leader of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), converged on the capital, La Paz. The march came days after Morales failed to appear at his own child-trafficking trial, where he stands accused of impregnating a girl in her early teens.
On X, Morales has called Bolivia’s leaders “invaders” and “neocolonialists and imperialists.”
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He has since demanded that Rodrigo Paz, the country’s first non-socialist president in nearly two decades, resign within 90 days, holding Bolivia’s roads and economy hostage. As of this writing, 103 blockades operate across seven of nine departments, 13 people have died, and food, medicine, and fuel are running short on the crisis’s 34th day.
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Western coverage calls the unrest a one-dimensional labor dispute over wages and fuel. The New York Times blamed teacher pay, contaminated fuel, and a new land law. Reuters pointed to teachers demanding higher wages and transport unions striking over fuel. The Associated Press reported protesters marching as the “economic crisis deepened.” These outlets cannot agree on what sparked the insurrection, because none will name its true cause, Evo Morales.
These protests are ideologically driven, and Morales has done this before; wages and fuel have little to do with it. The pattern is familiar. When a left-wing government faces unrest, Western progressives and the press invoke the language of defending democracy. When a right-leaning one does, that urgency disappears.
Some call this simply a trade-union revolt of farmers, miners, and teachers. But that ignores three things.
First, the economic grievances are real, but they are not what turned protest into insurrection. The trigger was Morales mobilizing his base the moment he was found in contempt for skipping his trial.
Second, the “supporters” cast as blue-collar workers seeking fair wages tell a different story to reporters from the Bolivian outlet Unitel. They admit that unions controlled by Morales pay them to protest and threaten their jobs if they fail to appear. Anyone who tries to negotiate with Paz, they say, is “immediately disowned and expelled.”
Third, the blockades are largely backed by narco-money from cartels that depend on coca grown in the Chapare, where Morales built his career as a coca-union boss and where his policies once pushed Bolivia’s black-market economy past its legitimate one. Those cartels want Paz gone before his open-market agenda brings the DEA back.
Morales has done this before. In 2024, after a judge issued an arrest warrant for statutory rape and incitement to prostitution, his supporters shut down highways, clashed with police, and occupied a military barracks, holding some 200 soldiers hostage. In 2019, after the Organization of American States found evidence of fraud in the election that handed him an unconstitutional fourth term, he summoned the same mobs before resigning. Every time Morales is held accountable, the roads close.
When Morales faced removal in 2019, those same Western voices lined up behind him. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) rushed to his defense. During a botched 2024 coup attempt against his successor, Luis Arce, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared that “the European Union stands by democracies.” But now that a centrist, pro-business president faces a violent attempt to overthrow him, those voices have fallen silent or come out for Morales. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has called his government “the best in the history of Bolivia.” France’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon claims Paz “prepared an operation for the kidnapping or murder” of Morales. The same people who invoked “defending democracy” for a leader chasing an unconstitutional fourth term now stand with the mob trying to topple an elected one.
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For Western progressives, “democracy” is not a principle. It is a slogan they invoke for their socialist friends and abandon for everyone else. Paz’s government will not undo two decades of MAS damage on its own, but it is a start.
As the coup unfolded, Secretary of State Marco Rubio backed the government, declaring, “We will not allow criminals and drug traffickers to overthrow democratically elected leaders in our hemisphere.” But first the world must call this what it is, a bid to topple a democracy by a man dodging prosecution. Morales belongs in a jail cell, not at the head of a blockade. Bolivia’s path forward runs through its courts and ballot box, not another round of mob rule.
Matias Ahrensdorf works at the Manhattan Institiute where he contributes to data analysis and policy research. His writing covers topics such as geopolitics, finance, and education. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, City Journal, and Compact Magazine. Matias has family that resides in Bolivia.
