Bolivia's President Evo Morales speaks at the Presidential Palace, in La Paz, Bolivia, Sunday, May 1, 2016. AP Photo/Juan Karita
During the last few years of the past Century and the early 2000’s, Bolivia showed levels of political instability that were high even for a region historically used to swift government changes both within and outside democratic rules. A civil society that was well organized both in urban and rural areas, altogether with an economic situation that offered little opportunities for personal and national improvement and the politicization of key issues (such as natural gas extraction and commerce) produced a climate of popular effervescence that challenged democratic governance. With almost two-thirds of the national population under the poverty line, high levels of inequality and a historically small middle class, the structural conditions for political turmoil were set. During the first six years of the century, the country had six different presidents, who had to rule from institutions with very low levels of legitimacy and a bankrupted party-system.
Only ten years after that the country has a very different situation. The government of Evo Morales, in office since 2006, has enjoyed political stability and economic growth at an uprecedent rate in the nation’s recent history. Morales was elected in 2005 and agaon in 2009, under a new Constitution, which allowed him the right, after much debate, of running again and winning the national election of 2014. By 2016 Morales was already the person who had occupied the Presidency for the longest period of time in Bolivia’s history. And while his government had some difficult moments, particularly as a result of the tension with the regional movement in the East of the country, in general terms his presidency has had very few turbulences.
