One Year Into Bolivia’s Political Regeneration

The 2019 coup d’etat that overthrew the democratically elected MAS-IPSP government was defeated last year and marked a significant turning point in the country’s political history.

In October 2020, a long-overdue election was held by the illegal coup-based government of Jeanine Áñez, a former Senator who self-declared herself as interim President of Bolivia. This government assumed power shortly after the de facto ousting of former President Evo Morales which featured his so-called “resignation” from the post a few weeks after the 2019 election.

Photo of La Paz, Bolivia by Snowscat on Unsplash

The election in October 2020 was the product of the courageous Bolivian working class and the mass mobilizations that took place around the country throughout the near one-year regime of Áñez and the military forces. Despite allegations of Morales and the Movement for Socialism (MAS-IPSP) party trying to “establish a dictatorship” (according to the The Economist) after the disputed election results in 2019, the party was and still is extremely popular. This is something that many mainstream outlets like The Washington Post still find difficult to accept.

But that is not what this article is about, as Áñez’s administration has departed relatively long ago…