After the coup, Bolivia’s Movement for Socialism returned to power in 2020 with Luis Arce winning the presidency. Photo: Aizar Raldes/AFP
The loss of Bolivia’s Movement for Socialism (MAS) in the election of 17 August was long anticipated. Its fall speaks to corruption, division and a failure to renew and it offers sharp lessons for South Africa.
The MAS’s defeat was no surprise. It was widely expected and is the culmination of years of division and drift. For those who admired the MAS and its achievements, the task now is to draw lessons, both for Bolivia and for South Africa.
The MAS was not just another political party. It was an extraordinary experiment that combined Marxism with indigenous worldviews, uniting miners, campesinos, coca growers and left-wing intellectuals into a formidable force.
Álvaro García Linera, Bolivia’s brilliant former vice-president, described the MAS’s approach as a synthesis of Indianismo and Marxism, an ideological fusion that enabled the movement to speak to Bolivia’s indigenous majority while mounting a powerful critique of capitalism. This intellectual depth, combined with the grassroots power of peasant federations and trade unions, gave the MAS its distinctive character.
The movement rose out of the ruins of neoliberalism in the 1980s and 1990s. Structural adjustment imposed by international financial institutions led to privatisation, unemployment, inequality and the enrichment of a small white elite. Indigenous communities and workers bore the brunt of this assault.
Out of this discontent came waves of protest, including the famous Cochabamba Water War in 2000, when communities resisted privatisation. It was in this context of mass mobilisation and resistance that the MAS formally took shape in 1997.
The breakthrough came in 2005 when Evo Morales, leader of the coca growers’ union, won the presidency. He became Bolivia’s first indigenous president and carried with him the hopes of the majority. For centuries, indigenous Bolivians had been marginalised, excluded from land ownership and treated as second-class citizens. Morales’s triumph represented a reversal of history.
Once in office, the MAS delivered on its promises. Natural gas was nationalised, bringing billions into state coffers. Poverty was cut dramatically: extreme poverty fell from 38% in 2005 to 15% in 2019. Social programmes extended education and healthcare.
In 2009 a new constitution declared Bolivia a plurinational state, recognising indigenous rights and communal forms of land ownership. Land reform redistributed around 23 million hectares to indigenous communities and small farmers. For millions, this was not only an economic reform but an act of historical justice.
The achievements of the MAS resonated across Latin America and beyond. Alongside Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, Cristina Kirchner in Argentina and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Morales became part of the Pink Tide that challenged US hegemony and neoliberal orthodoxy. Bolivia showed that it was possible to govern differently, to place dignity and redistribution at the centre of politics.
Yet from the beginning there were contradictions. The MAS relied heavily on resource extraction. Nationalisation provided the revenue for social spending, but the model depended on high commodity prices, rather than building new productive forces in the economy. Manufacturing, agriculture and technology were neglected in favour of gas and minerals, leaving the country exposed to the volatility of global markets.
Environmentalists and indigenous activists within the party also criticised the expansion of mining and gas in ecologically fragile areas. Morales’s government, they argued, was reproducing the same extractivist logic it claimed to oppose.
The turning point came in 2019. Morales, already in power for 14 years, decided to run for a fourth term despite having lost a referendum on term limits. This alienated parts of the left and opened the way for his opponents to stage a Western-backed coup. When votes were being counted, the Organisation of American States claimed there was evidence of fraud. It offered no proof but Western media repeated the allegation as fact.
Opposition groups mobilised, the military intervened and Morales was forced into exile. The coup installed Jeanine Áñez, a white far-right politician, who declared herself interim president without constitutional authority. Her administration repressed MAS supporters and presided over massacres.
Yet even after this, MAS returned to power in 2020 with Luis Arce, Morales’s former finance minister, winning a decisive victory. It seemed a remarkable comeback. But it soon became clear that unity was fragile. Morales returned from exile and clashed with Arce. Rival factions accused each other of betrayal. Internal disputes over candidate selection for local elections deepened the rift.
Corruption compounded these problems. Allegations of corruption, misuse of state contracts and patronage steadily eroded credibility. For many Bolivians, the MAS had come to look like the old order it once opposed. By the time of the 2025 election, the party had lost the ability to speak with one voice and to embody the moral clarity that once defined it.
The result on 17 August confirmed the decline. The MAS went into the election divided and discredited. The right did not suddenly become popular; it presented itself simply as the alternative to chaos. Younger voters, alienated from both Morales and Arce, turned away. The rural base that had once given MAS overwhelming strength remained loyal in parts but was no longer enough to carry a national victory.
For the international left, the lessons are clear. Movements that rely too much on one leader will struggle to renew themselves. Corruption is politically fatal for the left because it undermines claims to moral authority. Renewal is essential. Parties that drift away from their bases and are consumed by internal feuds lose legitimacy. Economic strategies that depend on extractivism are fragile and unity is indispensable.
These lessons resonate strongly in South Africa. The ANC, like the MAS, was once a symbol of liberation. Today it is more widely associated with corruption and decay. The lesson from Bolivia and Venezuela is that corruption and economic failure can rapidly turn people against a movement that once inspired millions. The ANC does not seem willing to confront corruption and is almost certain to lose power in the near future.
There are also serious divisions within the South African left. The trade union movement is fractured between the leaders of Cosatu, Numsa and Saftu. The middle class left has been mired in a sectarian war for the last two decades.
With more than 180 000 members organised into more than 100 branches in four provinces, Abahlali baseMjondolo is the only successful attempt in South Africa at popular organising from the left. But Bolivia’s campesino and indigenous federations could mobilise millions. While Abahlali is hugely impressive, and the only left organisation to have directly confronted and humiliated Operation Dudula, South Africa would need 10 movements of a similar size before we could begin to see a route to a socialist future.
The MAS showed the world that it is possible for the left to build powerful social movements, take state power and use it to lift millions from poverty, dignify oppressed communities and challenge global neoliberalism. But it also showed how such achievements can be undone when movements fail to renew themselves, when leaders refuse to step aside, when corruption corrodes legitimacy and when unity fractures.
The Bolivian left is not finished. It has deep historical roots and might recover in the years ahead. But its defeat is a warning for left governments elsewhere. Once in power, the ANC was never left-wing in the way that MAS was at its height, but as a liberation movement, it carried the hopes of millions.
Its inability to deal with corruption and to provide a viable economy makes its defeat almost inevitable. With no credible left party in South Africa, the parties waiting in the wings are an alarming mix of neoliberals and opportunists, some every bit as rotten — or even worse — than the worst parts of the ANC.
Dr Imraan Buccus is senior research associate at ASRI and research fellow at the University of the Free State.