BOLIVIA

AS THE 2019 GENERAL ELECTIONS APPROACH and Evo Morales seeks a fourth consecutive presidential election, evaluations of Bolivian politics have taken a decidedly critical turn. Shortly after the 2003 political crisis, the election of Bolivia’s first self-described Indigenous president in 2005 captivated scholars’ imaginations. Well over a decade later, much of the shine has come off Morales and his MAS party, in what many Bolivian political observers call a desgaste político. The day-to-day policy challenges faced by the MAS-led government often required pragmatic political compromises. Paradoxically, the same pragmatism that makes some observers re-evaluate their original inclusion of Bolivia’s Evo