Overview
- On Wednesday President Rodrigo Paz submitted a bill to Parliament to regulate states of emergency and to expand the military’s authority to remove road blockades.
- Nearly 100 nationwide blockades by miners, transport workers, teachers and Indigenous groups have choked supply lines and produced acute shortages of food, medicine, fuel and medical oxygen in La Paz, El Alto and other cities.
- The resignations of the defense and education ministers this week followed an earlier labor minister departure and deepen a political crisis that has seen reported deaths and at least $1.6 billion in economic losses.
- Senior U.S. officials have publicly backed the Paz government, describing the unrest as an effort to overthrow the state and warning of narco‑terrorist influence, a stance that heightens geopolitical stakes for Bolivia’s response.
- Road blockades are a long‑standing Bolivian protest tactic and the current uprising builds on months of economic strain from fuel subsidy cuts, falling gas revenues and depleted foreign reserves, which protesters say drove their demands for relief and political change.