Will Bolivian president Rodrigo Paz Pereira remain in power through the end of 2026?

TL;DR

The forecast is 89% YES. Paz survived a 53-day campaign demanding his resignation, then won a 100–58 legislative vote extending emergency powers, while the September 28 transport action left service operating in La Paz, El Alto, and Cochabamba. (gacetaoficialdebolivia.gob.bo) The main NO path is a new multi-region blockade that causes security or elite defections; the secondary path is an authoritative finding that the September travel dispute produced an interim succession.

Context

As of the September 28 cutoff, Bolivia’s official presidency page identifies Rodrigo Paz Pereira as president, following his November 8, 2025 investiture. About 94 days remain until the resolution deadline. The short horizon strongly favors continuity unless several political risks synchronize.

The government is fragile but functional. It faces a new diesel-price dispute, low urban approval, a hostile vice president, cabinet turnover, and announced October mobilization. Against that, Paz still commands the executive administration, can assemble legislative majorities, and is receiving operational support from the police and armed forces.

Evidence

The historical base rate starts low but is higher in Bolivia than in most presidential democracies. A study of Bolivia’s post-1982 democratic period identifies four protest-driven early presidential departures, in 1985, 2003, 2005, and 2019. Bolivia’s official historical account adds Hugo Banzer’s illness-related resignation in 2001. Treating these as five unscheduled departures over roughly 44 country-years gives a crude constant-hazard probability of about 3% over the remaining 94 days. This is a sparse reference class, but it prevents treating every severe protest as an imminent presidential fall.

Paz’s own revealed survival is stronger evidence than the unconditional base rate. The May–June confrontation lasted 53 days, generated resignation demands and reportedly caused 22 deaths. Paz did not resign. He negotiated, changed ministers, declared an emergency, and used police and military forces to clear routes. A president willing to leave under street pressure had a stronger reason to do so then than he does today.

The institutional picture also favors survival. On September 17, the legislature extended the state of exception for 90 days by 100 votes to 58 among 158 legislators present. This was not a personal confidence vote, but it shows that a large cross-party bloc prefers maintaining state authority to permitting another blockade-driven transfer. On September 28, police and military activated a joint operation, including 900 police at access points and strategic locations in La Paz. The observed security signal is obedience, not neutrality or defection.

The September 28 strike was disruptive but split. Reporting found participation in Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca, Potosí, and Oruro, while major transport organizations in La Paz, El Alto, and Cochabamba kept working. Organizers described the action as a 24-hour withdrawal of vehicles rather than a road-blockade campaign. That is materially weaker than the May–June siege and shows that the diesel issue has not yet unified the actors needed to remove a president.

The downside is real. The government set diesel at Bs 17.95 per litre, directly affecting freight, buses, farming, and food distribution. Evo Morales-aligned groups gave Paz until October 3 to repeal the diesel and state-enterprise decrees and threatened mobilization from October 13. Those groups have already demonstrated that they can sustain long blockades. The fresh diesel shock is the clearest reason to put Paz’s risk several times above the historical quarterly baseline.

Government cohesion is weak. A press review counted ten ministerial departures during Paz’s first nine months, including Economy, Defense, Education, and Labor. An August Ipsos CIESMORI survey reported 21% approval and 65% disapproval. The survey covered 400 online respondents in four major urban areas between August 19 and 31, so it is a warning signal rather than a national probability sample.

External financing cuts both ways. The legislature authorized a proposed US$1.9 billion IMF program, which supports liquidity and shows legislative cooperation. The IMF described it as a 36-month staff-level agreement still subject to Executive Board approval and prior actions. Financing can ease fuel and foreign-exchange shortages, but reforms imposed before funds and compensation arrive can intensify protest.

The strict-continuity issue from Paz’s September trip deserves a separate allowance. Article 169 of the Constitution says the vice president assumes the presidency during a temporary presidential absence. Decree 5675, Article 22 instead directs a president abroad to exercise powers through technology, with temporary substitution only if that is impossible. Lara declared himself president in exercise, and the prosecutor general called Senate President Diego Ávila the constitutional president during the dual absence. But Ávila rejected that status and said Paz remained president, while Paz continued directing the cabinet remotely. No accepted handover of the cabinet, security forces, or executive administration was established.

A later constitutional ruling could still affect resolution. The TCP admitted a challenge to the earlier remote-government decree in May 2026. Yet Bolivian constitutional jurisprudence generally preserves acts completed while a rule was presumed constitutional, even if the rule is later invalidated. I read that as reducing, not eliminating, the chance of a retrospective NO ruling over the September episode.

My scenario model for permanent political loss of office is:

This produces about 9% political-exit risk. I then allow about 2% combined for the disputed September succession being recognized or for a new formal interim transfer before year-end, plus less than 1% for death, definitive incapacity, or another nonpolitical interruption. Combining rather than adding these risks produces the final 89% YES forecast.

What's non-obvious

Low approval is not the same as support for a replacement. The same Ipsos survey that put Paz at 21% approval put Lara at only 10% approval and 75% disapproval. Lara can obstruct Paz and supply a constitutional focal point, but he is not an obvious consensus successor for legislators, business groups, protest movements, and security institutions.

The travel dispute is also easier to overstate than to dismiss. The Constitution gives Lara a serious textual argument, but a claim of office is not the same as an effective transfer. Ávila refused the role, the cabinet continued taking orders from Paz, and the general rule against retroactively reopening acts performed under a presumptively constitutional decree weakens the case that a future judgment must rewrite the September officeholder record. The risk is real, but it is not large enough to dominate the forecast.

Uncertainties

The largest legal gap is the absence of a published final TCP ruling on remote presidential government. I found no such decision in the TCP’s public 2026 archive, but absence from that archive does not prove there has been no docket activity. Direct access to the complete case file and any interim orders would narrow the forecast.

The largest political gap is whether the announced October action becomes a broad coalition. Daily data on blockade locations, participation by the COB, transport federations, El Alto neighborhood groups, miners and campesino organizations, and the movement of fuel and food into major cities would be more informative than protest headlines.

The security evidence is also incomplete. The September 28 deployment shows current obedience, not a permanent pledge of loyalty. Direct statements from the armed-forces and police high commands, plus evidence on whether units obey orders during a lethal confrontation, would sharply change the estimate.

Finally, the available approval survey is an urban online sample, and the IMF financing had not yet received confirmed Executive Board approval in the official material reviewed. A nationally representative poll, verified fuel-supply data, and confirmation of actual IMF disbursement would clarify whether Paz’s economic position is stabilizing before the October mobilization window.