Paz took power as Bolivia’s president in November last year, ending two decades of rule by the leftist Movement for Socialism (MAS). The dramatic collapse of the MAS was driven partly by popular anger over fuel shortages, rising prices and the lack of US dollars. But its downfall was rooted above all in bitter infighting between supporters of former president Evo Morales and those loyal to his successor, Luis Arce Catacora. At its best the MAS (born in 1995) had given power and voice to the majority Indigenous population of Bolivia and overseen a redistribution of wealth long hoarded by the country’s white elites. At its worst it has been an example of what happens if principle is overtaken by the desire to cling to power. The failure of the MAS and the betrayal of the thousands of activists that placed their hopes in its success also underlines the difficulty of transforming the idealism of a movement into the practical policies of a political party. The reckoning was brutal: MAS secured just over three per cent of the total vote and only two parliamentary seats, a dramatic loss for a party that up until this point had enjoyed a legislative majority for 20 years.
The 58-year-old Paz is a man of Bolivia’s traditional political class. He is the eldest son of former president Jaime Paz Zamora and the great nephew of Víctor Paz Estenssoro, another ex-head of state. This lineage has helped reassure the economic and political elite, who were all too eager to see the back of MAS with their unwelcome programme of fighting poverty and Indigenous inclusion and participation. Paz, who ran under the banner of the Christian Democratic Party, is portrayed as a creature of the centre right with his pledge to deliver the unlikely notion of ‘capitalism for all’. His strategically chosen running mate is the flamboyant former police captain Edman Lara Montaño who is responsible for whipping up popular support among voters concerned with the corruption that haunts Bolivian politics. Lara was once jailed for exposing police corruption and insists he would pursue wrongdoing even if it appears in his own government. Time will tell how these two personalities co-exist.
