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

TL;DR

I assign an 80% chance that Rodrigo Paz Pereira remains continuously president through December 31, 2026. Paz survived the larger May–June blockade wave, the military has publicly backed constitutional continuity, and the latest blockades remain scattered rather than national. (acleddata.com) The main route to NO is a second nationwide siege that joins fuel and IMF anger to the Cerimedo scandal, then triggers elite or security-force defections.

Context

The official presidency website still lists Paz as president and says he assumed office on November 8, 2025. About 119 days remain until the resolution deadline. (presidencia.gob.bo)

Paz is governing through several linked crises. Fuel shortages and price changes are generating new blockades. His vice president is openly hostile. An adviser’s criminal cases have produced allegations around the presidency. Yet Paz still controls the executive, has appointed new police leaders, and has no verified military break against him.

Evidence

Bolivia has a high-risk presidency, but a four-month window is short. Since elected civilian rule returned in 1982, three presidents have left amid mass political pressure: Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in 2003, Carlos Mesa in 2005, and Evo Morales in 2019. Bolivia’s official historical review covers the first two crises, while a Congressional Research Service report describes the police, ministerial, civic and military pressure preceding Morales’s resignation. (ine.gob.bo) A constant-hazard anchor from three protest-driven exits over 43.9 years gives:

$$1-\exp\left[-\frac{3}{43.9}\times\frac{119.31}{365.25}\right]=0.022.$$

That 2.2% is a floor, not the forecast. Paz currently has several factors that research associates with presidential failure: mass protest, alleged executive wrongdoing, economic hardship and weak legislative support (Cambridge study).

The strongest evidence for survival is that Paz already passed through the peak of the crisis. The full weekly updated ACLED aggregated-data history available at the September 3 cutoff contains 1,308 demonstration events across 12 country-month observations. These count discrete protest and riot events, not people or unique national campaigns.

The data shows two large peaks, in January and May, followed by a sharp decline after the government reached sectoral agreements and imposed the state of exception. ACLED’s own assessment says the coalition fragmented once groups obtained separate concessions, while warning that unresolved fuel demands could restart mobilization (ACLED Bolivia report). (acleddata.com) Early September is adverse but not yet comparable with May: the government negotiated the lifting of blockades in San Julián and Cuatro Cañadas, while Yapacaní remained blocked (September 3 report). (radiosplendid.bo)

The negative indicators are serious. The latest Ipsos CIESMORI survey found 21% approval and 65% disapproval for Paz among 400 internet-connected adults in La Paz, El Alto, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz, fielded August 19–31 with a referential margin of error of 4.9 percentage points (survey report). (eldia.com.bo) The sample is urban and online, so it is not a national probability poll. Still, it shows deep erosion where national political crises usually become visible.

Paz also lacks a normal political shield. His PDC won 49 of 130 deputies and 16 of 36 senators, or 65 of the Assembly’s 166 seats (official election allocation). (fuentedirecta.oep.org.bo) Congress censured Economy Minister José Gabriel Espinoza by 91 votes out of 129 members present, forcing Paz to dismiss a central architect of his program (EFE, August 21). (efe.com) AP reported that only six of Paz’s original 15 ministers remained in their posts by August 21 (AP review).

The economy supplies fuel for another crisis. The IMF and Bolivia reached a staff-level agreement on July 29 for a 36-month, $1.9 billion facility, but it still requires prior actions and IMF Executive Board approval (IMF release). (imf.org) The central bank’s official September 3 quote was Bs12.42 selling and Bs12.32 buying per US dollar (BCB daily series). (bcb.gob.bo) Fuel scarcity, diesel pricing and the perception of IMF-linked austerity can unite groups that otherwise have little in common.

The counterweights remain stronger than the headlines suggest. The armed-forces commander stated on August 7 that the military and police would defend the stability of the democratically elected government (Los Tiempos). A viral claim that police had mutinied was traced to reused 2019 footage and found false (ChequeaBolivia). The OAS secretary general explicitly backed Paz’s constitutional government after the July high-level mission (OAS statement). (lostiempos.com)

The opposition is fragmented around the succession question. Unidad Nacional has called itself constructive opposition and explicitly rejected measures that would destabilize Paz (Visión 360). Libre and Unidad were still willing on September 2 to negotiate laws and constitutional reforms with him (Correo del Sur report). (vision360.bo) Vice President Edmand Lara would benefit from succession, but the latest Ipsos CIESMORI results put him at 10% approval and 75% disapproval in the same urban corridor (poll report). (urgente.bo) This gives anti-Paz parties a reason to prefer a weak Paz to a Lara presidency.

Formal removal is also hard to complete quickly. The Bolivian Constitution lists death, resignation, definitive incapacity or absence, a final criminal conviction and recall as routes to cessation; the Assembly must authorize a presidential trial. Recall cannot begin until half the term has elapsed. (senapi.gob.bo) A private action has sought proceedings against Paz over Cerimedo (Correo del Sur), but no final conviction or mature removal process exists. Prosecutors also rejected an initial request to add the first lady to one illicit-enrichment investigation for lack of support (ANF). (noticiasfides.com) The scandal’s main danger is therefore political: authenticated evidence could cause protests and defections faster than a court could remove Paz.

My scenario model assigns a 38% chance of another broad national wave and a 38% chance that Paz exits conditional on such a wave, producing a 14.44% combined pathway. I add 4.5% for a scandal-driven or negotiated exit without that wave, 1.5% for an independent security rupture or coup pathway, and 0.4% for death or definitive incapacity. Combining the pathways while allowing for overlap gives:

$$P(\text{NO})=1-(1-0.1444)(1-0.045)(1-0.015)(1-0.004)=0.1984.$$

The complement is 0.8016 for YES.

What's non-obvious

The obvious read is that low approval, cabinet turnover and a hostile vice president mean the government is close to falling. That misses the coordination problem. Lara is an unattractive successor, Unidad says it does not seek destabilization, Libre is still negotiating, and the security forces have not switched sides. Presidential collapse needs these separate weaknesses to become one coalition.

The COB’s own leader acknowledged that the 53-day blockade failed to win the public support its organizers expected (Oxígeno). (oxigeno.bo) This makes current protest threats less decisive than their rhetoric. But Paz is weaker than he was in June, so surviving the first wave does not justify a forecast above 90%.

Uncertainties

• The ACLED series ends in August. It cannot measure the September 4 Cochabamba march, which is planned around fuel policy, alleged corruption and opposition to the IMF program (Red Uno). (reduno.com.bo)
• The state of exception is scheduled to end around September 18, and the government had not committed to extending it at the cutoff (Opinión). (opinion.com.bo)
• The most damaging Cerimedo recordings had not received a publicly documented official forensic authentication. Evidence claimed by Nadia Beller may be decisive, but it was not publicly available for assessment.
• Public military statements and the absence of a verified mutiny do not reveal private loyalties. A command-level defection would move the forecast sharply toward NO.
• The freshest approval data is a small urban online survey. A national rural-and-urban probability poll, verified counts of active blockades, and reliable faction counts inside the PDC would materially narrow the estimate. A reasonable subjective range is 70%–88% for YES.