Bolivia’s Streets Have Erupted. Here’s Why.

World

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June 12, 2026

Ordinary people are rising up against neoliberal orthodoxy.

Scenes from the streets of La Paz, Bolivia, on June 10, 2026.

(Jorge Mateo Romay Salinas / Anadolu via Getty Images)

The road into La Paz has become a tableau of economic rupture. Vehicles idle in fuel lines stretching for blocks. Miners carrying dynamite march beside transport workers demanding diesel. Indigenous federations maintain road blockades while food prices rise daily in the markets.

The government of President Rodrigo Paz Pereira, who took office late last year, describes the unrest as part of a campaign of sabotage and public disorder. But for many Bolivians, the protests are something else: a referendum on economic shock therapy. Bolivia’s international reserves have collapsed from roughly $15 billion a decade ago to barely $4.5 billion today —of which $3.6 billion are in gold. Meanwhile, the country now imports fuel for nearly $3 billion annually, compared with just $1 billion in natural gas exports , a dramatic reversal for a country that for decades was characterized by hydrocarbon surpluses. Amid this backdrop, reports have circulated of a potential $3.3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—4 percent of Bolivia’s roughly $81 billion GDP —and the brutal measures expected to accompany it.

To understand the fury in Bolivia’s streets, it is necessary to focus on a technical but nevertheless deeply political concept: IMF “prior actions.” These are measures shrouded in secrecy that governments must implement before IMF funds are disbursed—and before the public even knows the contents of an agreement, as they are only published after they have been implemented. Prior actions typically include subsidy reductions, exchange-rate reforms, fiscal tightening, privatization, and deregulation. Their purpose is supposedly to reassure foreign creditors that a government is serious about economic reform. But they front-load the social costs of stabilization onto workers and consumers. The impact of Bolivia’s neoliberal shock therapy in the 1980s and ’90s caused long-lasting damage that has permanently discredited these policies and institutions—and now, Bolivians fear a return to the past. Paz’s early “ Supreme Decree ,” removing fuel subsidies and immediately doubling the cost of living for many Bolivians, was widely interpreted as an undemocratic de facto prior action.

Bolivia’s history with shock therapy helps explain the explosive reaction to Paz’s emergency economic package, which violated a key campaign pledge not to implement such policies.

The result of the decree was immediate. Gasoline prices surged by 86 percent while diesel prices jumped by more than 160 percent, triggering cascading increases in transportation and food costs. Under mounting pressure, the government partially retreated , moderating some subsidy cuts and putting off draconian measures criminalizing social protest and dismantling protections for small landholders. But by then the damage was done. The protests were driven by concrete material grievances: diesel shortages crippling miners, truckers and farmers; food inflation running above 15 percent annually; fear of currency devaluation and the widespread perception that big agricultural exporters and economic elites were insulated while ordinary Bolivians absorbed the staggering costs of adjustment.

In the absence of dialogue with social movements, what began as opposition to specific policies quickly evolved into demands for the president’s resignation. Grassroots activists argued that Paz had forfeited his legitimacy by imposing sweeping economic changes through an undemocratic and unconstitutional decree while responding to protests with militarization, arrests, and human rights violations. Indigenous organizations, miners, transport unions, and labor federations formed the backbone of the mobilizations, reflecting not merely partisan opposition but a broad coalition convinced that democratic consent had been bypassed. Many voters felt betrayed by a government that campaigned on stability but embraced IMF-style austerity just six weeks after taking office. Internal political fractures only deepened the crisis. Vice President Edmand Lara publicly distanced himself from aspects of the proposed IMF loan and signaled sympathy for the anger in the streets, reinforcing perceptions of a government losing coherence.

Current Issue

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