As Bolivia’s Elections Near, Why Socialism Is Out And The Catholic Church Might Be In
The defeat of socialism in the first round of Bolivia's presidential elections on Aug. 17 marked a turning point for the Catholic Church.
Bolivia has been governed by the Movement Toward Socialism party, known as MAS in Spanish, since 2006 — a period only interrupted by the interim government of Jeanine Áñez between November 2019 and November 2020.
In the August elections, none of the left-wing candidates, including the MAS representative, made it to the second round of voting, scheduled to take place Oct. 19.
READ: Chile’s New Immigrant Museum Stands Amid Churches And Cemeteries
“The big loser in the elections is MAS,” said Carlos Cordero, dean of the Faculty of Law, Political Science and International Relations at the Bolivian Catholic University. Bolivians will elect a new president, and their options are Rodrigo Paz Pereira or Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, considered center-right and right-wing, respectively. Both are Catholic, the majority religion in the country.
“During the MAS governments, the church lost prominence,” said César Rojas Ríos, a political analyst and United Nations consultant. “With the change in the political cycle, the church will probably be called upon again as a mediator.”
MAS, especially Bolivia’s former president Evo Morales, attacked the church. In 2007, Morales, who served as the country’s president between 2006 and 2019, said that the clergy was an ally of the oligarchy to dominate the people after the Secretary General of the Bolivian Episcopal Conference asked him not to imitate a “Venezuelan-style democracy.”
His attacks continued as the Episcopal Conference criticized his intention to run for president for a fourth time, despite losing a referendum in 2016, where voters rejected his reelection.
Before MAS came to power, the Catholic Church had frequently served as a mediator in political crises that included the resignation of former presidents Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in 2003 and Carlos Meza in 2005.
“The church has played the role of a buffer, a stabilizer in moments of upheaval,” said Ríos.
In 2019, the Bolivian Catholic University hosted political leaders in La Paz to find a solution to the crisis triggered by Morales’ resignation. Morales had attempted to run for his fourth term in an election that ended with accusations of fraud by the opposition. Protests erupted across the country, some of which resulted in deaths. The Armed Forces pressured Morales to resign, after which he fled the country to Mexico.
“In this power vacuum, the Catholic Church regained its mediating role,” Cordero said.
Bishops Eugenio Scarpellini and Aurelio Pesoa held talks with diplomats. They all met with political leaders, including representatives of MAS, at the university’s rectorate on Nov. 11, 2019. During the meeting, they called Senate leader Jeanine Áñez and asked her if she wanted to become president, as stipulated in the constitution. Áñez said yes, and the MAS representatives agreed.
MAS later ignored this agreement. Under the administration of President Luis Arce, who succeeded Áñez, MAS leaders accused the church of orchestrating a coup d'état with the meeting at the Catholic University.
“It was not the case,” said Cordero. Monsignor Scarpellini, who was Bishop of the Diocese of El Alto, died from COVID-19 in July 2020. Born in Verdellino, in the Province of Bergamo in Italy, he was called the “Monsignor of Pacification” or the “Shepherd of Democracy” for his role in the crisis that arose after the failed 2019 elections.
“He was vital in the negotiations that pacified the country,” said Gonzalo Mendieta, a Bolivian lawyer and columnist.
After his death, the church took on a more distant role.
“It now seems more cautious than in 2019,” he added.
In 2021, the Bolivian Prosecutor’s Office requested the church to explain its role in the dialogue process seeking a solution to the crisis. The church wrote a report of what had happened between October 2019 and January 2020, which it presented to the Pope and the Prosecutor's Office. “The Catholic Church rejects any accusation of conspiracy, propitiation, cover-up or any other form of action related to an alleged coup d'état,” said the text.
The attacks continued. In 2023, the opposition in Bolivia denounced that Arce’s administration was taking the same path against the church as Nicaragua’s president Daniel Ortega, who had launched a crackdown, arresting priests for criticizing the government. The Nicaraguan government even severed ties with the Vatican.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian Episcopal Conference requested the government to implement measures to deal with the economic crisis affecting the country. Since 2023, there has been a shortage of U.S. dollars, which are needed to import fuel.
For the Episcopal Conference, the government needs to implement measures such as allowing tax-free oil imports, reducing public spending, promoting exports and strengthening private investment. The bishops said that the country needs to change its economic model from one of redistribution to one of generating wealth.
“The new government will face an economic crisis that requires a strong adjustment,” said Ríos.
This adjustment may lead to social unrest, especially in areas prone to protests, like El Alto. In this scenario, the church can work to prevent the violent escalation of conflict, facilitate the reaching of agreements and become a guarantor that those agreements will be met, he added.
As it has been in the past, the Catholic Church can become a space for dialogue with the new administration in Bolivia.
You can read this story in Spanish here.
Graciela Ibáñez is a journalist with a Master of Arts from Columbia Journalism School, where she graduated in 2008. She works as a professor of journalism at Universidad Gabriela Mistral and at Universidad Viña del Mar in Chile. She covers Chile for foreign media outlets, including TRT World and Americas Quarterly. She worked as a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires and REDD Intelligence in Santiago and for Debtwire in New York City. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Viña del Mar.