A decision as suicidal as militarization, or finally achieve peace
Morales presents Paz with ultimatum: hold elections in 90 days or militarize the country amid escalating protests demanding the president's resignation. Road blockades have isolated major cities for nearly three weeks, creating shortages of food, fuel, and medical supplies including oxygen.
- Road blockades have isolated La Paz and El Alto for 19 days
- Morales demands elections within 90 days or warns of militarization
- Morales faces arrest warrant for alleged human trafficking involving a minor in 2016
- Hospitals rationing oxygen; food and fuel shortages across capital cities
- Government claims Morales orchestrated protests to evade trial
Ex-president Evo Morales demands early elections within 90 days, warning President Paz faces only militarization or constitutional transition as road blockades paralyze La Paz and El Alto for 19 days.
Bolivia is grinding to a halt. For nineteen days, road blockades have choked off La Paz and El Alto from the rest of the country—cutting the main highway that connects the capital to its sister city, sealing the borders with Peru and Chile, isolating the southern regions. Food is running short. Fuel is running short. Hospitals are rationing oxygen. The protests that triggered these blockades began in early May with a simple demand: President Rodrigo Paz must resign.
Into this crisis stepped Evo Morales, the former president who governed Bolivia from 2006 to 2019 and remains the country's most powerful opposition figure. On Sunday, Morales issued what amounted to an ultimatum. He posted on social media that Paz faced only two choices: militarize the country, or call elections within ninety days as the constitution allows. "A decision as suicidal as militarization," Morales wrote, "or finally achieve peace and transition through elections in the next ninety days to avoid conflicts with deaths and injuries." The message was directed at his supporters—the coca farmers, the labor unions, the campesinos whose blockades now held the capital hostage—but it was also a political calculation. Morales framed the choice as constitutional necessity versus authoritarian crackdown, leaving Paz no middle ground.
Morales has been sheltering in the Trópico de Cochabamba, a coca-growing region in the country's center, since October 2024. He is surrounded there by hundreds of his followers, a human shield against the arrest warrant that hangs over him. In May, a court in the southern region of Tarija declared him in contempt and issued a new capture order after he failed to appear for trial. The charges are grave: alleged human trafficking, specifically an accusation that he fathered a child with a minor while serving as president in 2016. The trial is now suspended, frozen until either Morales presents himself to authorities or police execute the warrant. The government of Paz has accused Morales of orchestrating the current protests precisely to distract from his legal troubles, to create enough chaos that his case gets lost in the noise.
The timing is suggestive. On May 11, the same day the court declared Morales in rebellion, a march of his supporters departed from the highlands toward La Paz. A week later, they merged with the broader protest movement—the campesinos, the Central Obrera Boliviana labor federation, the various groups demanding Paz's resignation. Whether Morales initiated the protests or simply rode them is contested. What is certain is that his name and his movement have become inseparable from the blockades.
Morales also leveled accusations of his own. He blamed the United States for Paz's predicament, naming Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Fernando Cerimedo, a former advisor to Argentine President Javier Milei, as architects of what he called a failing policy. He described Paz himself as having arrived at the presidency "by accident"—a reference to the constitutional crisis that elevated Paz to the top job. In Morales' telling, foreign interference and constitutional accident have combined to produce a president without legitimacy, and that illegitimacy is what has sparked the uprising.
Yet Morales also questioned the government's calls for dialogue. How can there be genuine negotiation, he implied, when the state is simultaneously filing criminal charges against protest leaders? The contradiction is real. On one side, Paz's government extends invitations to talk. On the other, it pursues legal cases against the very people it is asking to negotiate with.
On the ground, the situation has grown more volatile. Government forces attempted to open a "humanitarian corridor" through the blockade, trying to move food and supplies into the isolated cities. Protesters met them with dynamite and stones hurled from slings. The security forces responded with tear gas. The corridor failed. The blockade held. As of the reporting date, La Paz and El Alto remained cut off, their residents rationing what supplies remained, waiting to see whether Paz would accept Morales' ultimatum or whether the country would spiral further into confrontation.
Notable Quotes
A decision as suicidal as militarization, or finally achieve peace and transition through elections in the next ninety days to avoid conflicts with deaths and injuries— Evo Morales, former president of Bolivia
Paz has only two paths: militarize the country or call elections as the constitution establishes— Evo Morales, in social media statement
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does Morales frame this as a choice between elections and militarization? Why not other options?
Because those are the two endpoints he sees. Elections would transfer power; militarization would entrench it. Everything else—dialogue, negotiation, gradual reform—he views as stalling tactics that leave him vulnerable to arrest.
But doesn't Morales himself have something to gain from chaos? He's facing trial.
Yes. That's precisely what makes this so tangled. His supporters may genuinely want Paz out. But Morales also benefits from the disorder. The government knows this, which is why they keep saying he orchestrated it all. The truth is probably both things at once.
What does Paz actually have to lose if he calls elections?
His presidency, obviously. But also, elections might not go his way. Morales still has deep support in rural areas. Paz is seen as accidental, illegitimate. Early elections could hand power back to Morales—or to someone else entirely. It's a gamble.
And if he doesn't call elections?
Then the blockades continue. People suffer. Hospitals run out of oxygen. Eventually, either the military moves in to break the blockade—which is the militarization Morales warns about—or Paz's government collapses under the pressure. Neither outcome is good for him.
So Morales has actually cornered him.
Strategically, yes. He's made it so that any move Paz makes looks bad. Call elections, lose power. Don't call them, look authoritarian. Try to break the blockade, look militaristic. Morales has forced the choice.