Elections and the political class in Bolivia

The announcement of the date of the next presidential elections – August 17, 2025 – raises the flag of the electoral race, in a context not only of serious economic crisis, but also of acute democratic, institutional, ethical and moral crisis. The outlook, regarding a substantial change in politics that would restore the hope of Bolivians, is bleak.

It is one of doubt and uncertainty, due to the characteristics of the political class. Of that political elite, in the words of Gaetano Mosca, that holds power and defines the future and destiny of countries. There are societies with greater development, wealth and prosperity, even without raw materials. In these, that elite has the conviction that politics is, fundamentally, a service. On the other hand, in societies where the political class is made up of the worst people, what is observed, rather, is corruption, backwardness, underdevelopment and poverty.

When referring to the particular Bolivian political class, I have used the term “execrable” on several occasions to sum up its despicable and detestable characteristics. They are “sewer” politicians. Whether they are blue, green, yellow, pink, and left or right, they are all visceral.

To support these controversial claims, let us look at the evidence of the actions of the political class in Bolivia over the last four decades. We will refer to the beginnings of the recovery of democracy. Specifically, to the beginning of the cycle of “agreed democracy.” The political class of this cycle, after several decades of dictatorship, reaffirmed the practice of using the State as a source of enrichment.

In this logic, the agreements made to elect governments in five constitutional administrations, from 1985 to 2002, were never programmatic or with a vision of the country. These pacts quickly became perverted, becoming, in essence, prebendal agreements; support in exchange for quotas in the State. Traditional political leaders imposed their petty interests in these agreements. The pacts are born, then, with congenital evils.

To this logic of prebendal sharing and redistribution of the State, three other terrible evils are added. In order of priority: corruption, clientelism and patrimonialism.

Very soon, then, with these evils on their shoulders, these pacts will meet their end. Not before, they have fostered and built the ideal scenario for the seizure of power by Evo Morales and the Movement for Socialism (MAS). They are paving the way.

Then, in opposition, during five elections and constitutional administrations, unable to compete with the ruling party, they became a functional opposition. Their lack of vision and poor decisions contributed, innocently, to the strategy of reproducing power. They are complicit in the unprecedented concentration of power in the hands of one person and his party. They are also complicit in authoritarian deviations, waste and mega corruption.

The inability to assimilate the pedagogical experiences of the past prevents them from conceiving serious political projects to confront the MAS, with competitive possibilities. Surely, once again, they will be divided and fragmented, when experience recommends forming a large opposition bloc. If this were the case, they would be repeating the same mistake five times. Their foolishness is pathetic.

On the other side, we have the political class that has governed the country for 18 years. They took power with the promise of great changes, to impose a “new way of doing politics”, banishing corruption and all those evils rooted in previous rulers. Sooner or later, they will become intoxicated with power and, literally, get drunk on the economic boom.

Evaluating now, in time, the “process of change” turned out to be a fallacy. Time now allows us to clearly appreciate all this falsehood. Behind this montage and theater, there is a voracious kleptocratic elite that, with the leftist discourse of change and indigenous narrative, has controlled and squandered the largest economic surplus in history. Power ended up in the hands of false leftists. The exercise and concentration of power will reveal its essence. They begin to commit, outside the Constitution that they themselves approved, a series of outrages, abuses and arbitrary acts. They lose decency and, without scruples, begin to steal with both hands. They lie, hide and deny everything. They are leftists with double standards, they criticize the empire, but in their habits, they are militants of capitalist consumption and admirers of its main brands. They preach sobriety while, with the people’s money, they live in opulence with enormous privileges. Although they have recently divided, the two wings, “evistas” or “arcistas”, are exactly the same. They share the same miseries and pathologies.

Look at the quality of our execrable political class. Some are worse than others. The common denominator in all of them is the “deep kleptomaniac vocation”. This voracious appetite for accumulating fortunes with fiscal resources is unstoppable in them. Politics is conceived by all of them as a business, from which one must emerge rich in the shortest time possible.

In this scenario, as long as there is no real change in the composition of our political class, elections do not offer any hope.