Luis Arce Catacora
The candidate for the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), Luis Arce, won the presidency of the country in the first round of voting on 19 October 2020. According to an announcement from exit polls, at 12 midnight, Luis (Lucho) Arce won 52.4 percent of the votes; the runner-up, his closest rival, Carlos Mesa garnered 31.5 percent.
By 2020, Bolivia had returned to the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) with the election of Luis Arce. His arrival was a hope for a majority that longed for stability and institutional recovery. Arce achieved a resounding victory in the first round, demonstrating that the political project led by Evo Morales still retained solid popular support, especially in the defense of social policies and economic sovereignty.
At a news conference in La Paz, the Bolivian capital, Luis Arce said the MAS party in power once again would work to recover the country's economy. He said: "We have the obligation to redirect our process of change without hate, learning and overcoming our own mistakes." The Bolivian president-elect thanked the international community for accompanying the electoral process that had developed with much polarization and expectation. "I thank the observers who have been kind enough to come to our house and listen to our concerns about how the electoral system was developing," he added.
From the resignation of President Evo Morales and the subsequent installation of an interim government, it took a year for Bolivia to elect anew president. In November 2019 an interim government was formed by Jeanine Añez, the head of Bolivia’s Senate and a right-wing opponent of Morales. Mass protests ensued across the country with supporters of Morales andhis Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party clashing with securityforces. The Inter-American Commission of Human Rights later recorded at least four deaths, with a further 426 injured and 227 detained. The Supreme Electoral Court of Bolivia announced that the new electionwould be held on 3 May 2020. However, this was later postponed to 6 September 2020 and then to 18 October 2020 due to Covid-19.
Eight presidential candidates were registered by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to run in the planned 3 May general election. Interim president Jeanine Áñez later dropped out of the race, citing concerns about potentially splitting the vote and allowing Morales and his MAS party to return to office. A week before the postponed 18 October 2020 elections, former president Jorge Quiroga announced that he and his Liberty and Democracy (Libre21) party were also withdrawing from the race, leaving five candidates. Most analysts agreed that the race was between Luis Arce (Evo Morales’chosen candidate) and the opposition centrist, Carlos Mesa.
Luis Arce was born on 28 September 1963 in La Paz, Bolivia. He is married with three children and, in addition to his native Spanish, speaks English and Portuguese. He holds a degree in Economics from the Higher University of San Andres (UMSA) and gained a Master’s in Economic Science from the University of Warwick, UK (1996-1997). Arce worked at the Central Bank of Bolivia (CBC) from 1987 to 2006.
On 23 January 2006, he was sworn in as Minister of Finance in President Evo Morales' first cabinet. He was reappointed to the postseven times and was widely credited with restoring Bolivia’s economy. When Morales resigned in November 2019, Arce was one of several ministers to resign with him. The interim government granted Arce and his wife safe passage to leave Bolivia and they joined Morales in exile in Mexico.
On 19 January 2020, former President Evo Morales announced that Luis Arce would be the candidate for the left-wing MAS party in the presidential election, with former Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca as his running mate. Arce returned to Bolivia on 28 January 2020.
His running mate, David Choquehuanca, 58, was the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2017. The Indigenous diplomat was born in the Bolivian highlands and is a well-known campesino leader. "A running ticket to encompass Indigenous, social, and middle-class movements," commented teleSUR's correspondent Marco Teruggi -- meaning Morales' party flipped the Evo Morales-Garcia Linera logic, to now appeal to middle-classes first and Indigenous movements secondly.
Luis Arce manifested that his administration will restore the MAS administration's economic achievements, achievements now in steep decline due to the mismanagement of the unconstitutional president Jeanine Anez. Arce said: "The de facto government showed that it does not know how to administer the State or the economy, it is skilled at destroying everything we have done," the former minister of Economy and Finance said. Arce also reiterated that his political platform looks forward to giving continuity to the model of government, which began in 2006 when Evo Morales assumed the presidency.
Bolivia’s electoral organisation (the OEP) published the official results of the presidential election on 23 October 2020. Luis Arce secured an outright majority and easily avoided a run-off. The Movement Towards Socialism and its presidential and vice presidential candidates -- Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca -- won 55.10 percent of the votes. His victory marked a return to the left for Bolivia.
Bolivia has experienced the most coups and revolutions of any country on the planet since 1950 and almost 200 since its independence in 1825. The president of Bolivia, Luis Arce Catacora, denounced 26 June 2024 the irregular mobilizations of Bolivian military units. Local media in the area have reported the movement of at least 8 military armored cars, full of armed soldiers, in the areas of Plaza Murillo where the Government Palace and the Plurinational Legislative Assembly are located. In the midst of the coup attempt, a new military command was appointed: José Wilson Sánchez, Gerardo Zavala, as Air Force Leader and Renán Guardia Ramírez, commander of the Bolivian Navy. During his speech given by the general commander of the Bolivian Army, José Wilson Sánchez , making use of his power he ordered the immediate withdrawal of all military tankettes, vehicles and personnel who are in the streets.
With this new appointment, General Juan José Zúñiga lost all the authority of the Bolivian military commanders. Rumors had started circulating in Bolivia that Zuniga's job was at risk. Zuniga, for his part, said in televised comments that he expected the government to change and that he also intended to release "political prisoners," including the former interim president, Jeanine Anez. He stopped short of describing the activities as a coup himself.
Although initially Luis Arce and Evo Morales walked together, over time the relationship deteriorated. Arce showed a growing desire to politically separate himself from the former president and consolidate his own figure within the MAS, which generated an internal fracture that significantly weakened the leftist party. This division was key to its historic defeat in the first round of 2025. The electoral result of 17 August 2025 surprised even the most optimistic analysts on the right. The MAS, which had dominated Bolivian politics for more than a decade, suffered the worst defeat in its history by obtaining just 3.2% of the votes with its candidate Eduardo del Castillo.
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