Bolivia: Political Parties & Elections

For nearly two decades, Bolivian politics was dominated by the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), the leftist, Indigenous-rooted party founded around Evo Morales that governed almost continuously from 2006 onward. Opposition to MAS has historically been fragmented among several center-right and regionally based parties, including groups aligned with figures such as former president Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga and, more recently, the Christian Democratic Party (PDC).

In the August 2025 general election, Bolivian voters brought an end to two decades of MAS dominance. Incumbent president Luis Arce did not seek reelection amid internal party splits and shortages of fuel and foreign currency, and the MAS candidate finished a distant sixth, with the party's congressional representation collapsing to a single seat. Senator Rodrigo Paz of the PDC and former president Jorge Quiroga of the Libre alliance advanced to an October runoff after leading the first-round field, and Paz went on to win the presidency with 55 percent of the vote, marking the first time power changed hands through a runoff in Bolivian history.

Bolivia's bicameral Plurinational Legislative Assembly consists of a 130-member Chamber of Deputies, elected through a mix of single-member constituencies and proportional representation, and a 36-member Chamber of Senators, with each of the country's nine departments electing four senators by proportional representation. Seats in both chambers are apportioned largely on the basis of the presidential vote, which meant that the dramatic swing away from MAS in 2025 reshaped the composition of the legislature as well as the presidency.