Bolivia needs to restore the essential elements of democracy to overcome the crisis

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
June 12, 2026

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The ongoing coup d’état, which violates the human rights of the Bolivian people, demands the resignation of President Rodrigo Paz, and has put democracies across the Americas on alert, is merely a symptom of the crisis, not the crisis itself. Since 2003, Bolivia has endured the destruction of its society, education, justice system, rule of law, institutions, economy, and national unity, as well as the attempt to liquidate the Bolivian nation. It has been victimized by 21st-century socialism, which, under Evo Morales and his criminal group, transformed the country into a dictatorship/narco-state.

With the coup d’état carried out on October 17, 2003, against President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, the destruction of Bolivia as an independent and sovereign republic began. They destroyed the nation’s Armed Forces by falsely accusing the democratically elected military commanders of the crimes committed by the coup leaders. They planned the takeover of the National Police and the justice system, the dismantling of the regulatory system, the elimination of the Central Bank’s independence, the termination of Popular Participation, the subordination of Parliament, and more.

The members of the 2003 High Command were tried and persecuted along with the ousted president and his ministers. The generals and officers of the Republic were not politicians; they had carried out orders within the framework of the Constitution and the laws, and their command was based on merit, promotion, and the legal and institutional mechanisms of democracy. Yet they were imprisoned, convicted, and humiliated. Thus ended in Bolivia—with regional repercussions—the possibility of the Armed Forces fulfilling their constitutional role as a “Fundamental Institution of the Nation.” It was the “Castro vaccine.”

With total control of the justice system – applying the method of Cuba and Venezuela, with Cubans and Venezuelans operating – Morales persecuted and ordered the sentencing of more military commanders with false accusations such as the «Chinese missiles», falsely accusing generals of the democracy of having delivered material – obsolete and discarded – to North American imperialism.

Evo Morales resigned in 2019 due to electoral fraud and fled to Mexico with the help of his «functional opponents.» President Jeanine Añez assumed the presidency; «the dictator left, but not the dictatorship.» The dictatorial system of laws, the destruction of institutions, the plurinational narco-state, the proliferation of confrontations aimed at destroying the nation, corruption and impunity, control of the justice system with «hitman prosecutors and executioner judges,» electoral fraud, and more remained intact. The dictatorial power recognized President Añez, then refused to recognize her, and later imprisoned her, while military commanders were persecuted, imprisoned, convicted, and humiliated.

Merit-based promotions were disregarded by Evo Morales and Luis Arce, who transformed the Armed Forces and the National Police into entities manipulated by the regime and subject to intervention by Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran. They destroyed the «institutional doctrine,» changing admission requirements and curricula. They placed the Armed Forces at the service of transnational crime by creating the «ALBA Anti-Imperialist School» in conjunction with the dictatorships of Cuba and Iran. The National Police served the plurinational narco-state, expelling the DEA and engaging in corruption.

The members of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, Constitutional Court, Attorney General’s Office, Council of the Judiciary, National Electoral Court and more, with current democratic mandates, were swept away with the promulgation – after falsifications, bloody massacres and fraud – of the constitution of the plurinational state that changed the names of the institutions in order to occupy them.

Organization of the Executive Branch, Administrative Decentralization, Popular Participation (power to the municipalities), Regulatory System, Central Bank, Law on Controlled Substances and the Fight against Drug Trafficking, Land Law (INRA), Investment Guarantee System, National Education System, Social Security, Medicine, and more were destroyed and replaced with “infamous laws” that violate human rights instead of protecting them.

They changed codes and procedures, established special courts, parallel justice, imprisoned and murdered defenders of freedom, ensuring impunity for criminals and the newly rich of the regime.

They destroyed the Legislative Power by changing systems, reducing powers, annulling parliamentary immunity, operating mechanisms of subordination and turning the so-called «first power of the state» into an appendage of the central power.

Objective reality, the crisis and extensive documentation prove the “human rights violations”, the non-existence of the “rule of law”, the lack of separation and independence of public powers, the impossibility of “free political organization” (political prisoners and exiles), and the secrecy of the electoral register.

Today, none of the essential elements of democracy exist in Bolivia, and as long as this continues, the crisis will persist, worsen, and plunge Bolivians from poverty into destitution. President Rodrigo Paz has assumed the presidency, but not the power.

*Lawyer and Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy

Published in Spanish by infobae.com Monday June 8th, 2026