FILE - A supporter attends the Movement for Socialism or MAS party convention to elect a new leader to replace former President Evo Morales, in El Alto, Bolivia, May 4, 2024. President Luis Arce and his one-time ally, ex-President Evo Morales, are battling for the future of MAS ahead of the presidential election in 2025. FILE - Merchants shout slogans during an anti-government march against the banks’ lack of U.S. dollars, in La Paz, Bolivia, June 17, 2024.
Bolivia’s financial quagmire stems, at least in part, from an unprecedented rift at the highest levels of the governing party.Luis Suarez will play in his fifth Copa America, are battling for the future of Bolivia’s splintering Movement for Socialism, known by its Spanish acronym MAS, ahead of elections in 2025.
Earlier this month, Morales drew tens of thousands of loyalists to Cochabamba southeast of La Paz, galvanizing his rural stronghold. Morales, who proclaimed in his speech that “we have complied with the rules,” has threatened to unleash mass unrest if he is disqualified from running. With the government forking out $2 billion a year to import heavily subsidized gasoline in an effort to quell public discontent, the squeeze has tightened. The Fitch rating agency in February downgraded Bolivia’s debt deeper into junk territory, assigning it a CCC rating.