The politics of Bolivia takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the president is head of state, head of government and head of a diverse multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of parliament. Both the Judiciary and the electoral branch are independent of the executive and the legislature. After the 2014 Bolivian general election, 53.1% of the seats in national parliament were held by women, a higher proportion of women than that of the population.
The Plurinational Legislative Assembly is the national legislature of Bolivia, placed in La Paz, the country's seat of government.
The Movement for Socialism, officially the Movement for Socialism – Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples, is a socialist political party in Bolivia. Its followers are known as Masistas.
Juan Fernando del Granado Cosío, often referred to as Juan Sin Miedo, is a Bolivian human rights lawyer and politician who served as mayor of La Paz from 2000 to 2004 and 2005 to 2010. A member of the Fearless Movement, of which he was leader, he previously served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies from La Paz from 1993 to 1999.
The 2010 Bolivian regional elections were held on 4 April 2010. Departmental and municipal authorities were elected by an electorate of approximately 5 million people. Among the officials elected are:
The Movement for Sovereignty is a leftist, indigenist Bolivian political party founded by dissidents of the Movement for Socialism (MAS-IPSP). Its leader, and fourth-place candidate for Governor of La Paz department in the 2010 regional election is Lino Villca. Other MAS-IPSP activists involved in founding the MPS include Óscar Chirinos, Miguel Machaca, and Rufo Calle. The party's colors are blue, white, and yellow.
Municipal elections were held in Bolivia, on December 5, 1999, in all 311 municipalities across the country. The elections marked a milestone in the continuous deterioration of the political influence of the traditional parties. In 23 municipalities the mayors were elected through direct popular vote, in other municipalities the mayors were elected by the respective municipal council.
The first Bolivian judicial election was held on 16 October 2011. The national vote was held to elect magistrates to serve on the Supreme Court of Justice, the Plurinational Constitutional Court, the Agro-environmental Court and members of the Judiciary Council. It was originally scheduled to be held on 5 December 2010, but officials of the National Electoral Court and of the MAS majority in the Plurinational Legislative Assembly delayed it. The vote will be the first time that a Latin American country directly elects its highest judicial officials.
Félix Patzi Paco is a Bolivian academic and politician. He was the governor of the La Paz Department from 2015 to 2021. A member of the Aymara ethnic group, he has been active in supporting indigenous movements in Bolivia.
Elizabeth Cristina Salguero Carrillo is a Bolivian diplomat, journalist, politician, and women's rights activist who served as minister of cultures from 2011 to 2012. A member of the Movement for Socialism, she previously served as a party-list member of the Chamber of Deputies from La Paz from 2006 to 2009. In 2009, she was elected as a substitute party-list member of the Chamber of Deputies from La Paz but resigned before taking office in order to launch an ultimately unsuccessful La Paz mayoral campaign. From 2012 to 2015, she served as ambassador of Bolivia to Germany, and since then has worked as an international expert in strategic planning at UN Women.
Edmundo Novillo Aguilar is a Bolivian lawyer, politician, and Governor of Cochabamba. His political career includes serving on the Departmental Council, as Mayor of Totora, and as a Deputy in the Bolivian Chamber of Deputies. He was Presidents of the Chamber of Deputies for four years from 2006 to 2010. He is affiliated with the Movement for Socialism (MAS-IPSP), and was the first MAS-IPSP member to serve a President of the Chamber of Deputies.
General elections were held in Bolivia on 12 October 2014, the second to take place under the country's 2009 constitution, and the first supervised by the Plurinational Electoral Organ, a newly created fourth branch of government. Incumbent President Evo Morales was re-elected for a third term.
The 2010–2015 Plurinational Legislative Assembly of Bolivia was the first class of the Bolivian legislature, also known as the Plurinational Legislative Assembly, to go by that name. The Assembly was controlled in both houses by the governing Movement for Socialism (MAS-IPSP), elected with a 2/3 supermajority, although some members later separated themselves from the majority. Just four incumbent members of the 2005–2010 Congress returned: Deputy Antonio Franco; Deputy Javier Zabaleta (MAS-IPSP/MSM); Senator René Martínez (MAS-IPSP), who was a deputy; and Senator Róger Pinto, previously of Podemos and now representing PPB-CN.
Antonia Wilma Alanoca Mamani is a Bolivian journalist, politician, and television presenter who served as minister of cultures and tourism from 2017 to 2019. A member of the Movement for Socialism, she previously served an El Alto municipal councilor from 2015 to 2017, a position she returned to in 2021.
The 2019 Bolivian protests, also known as the Pitita Revolution, were protests and marches from 21 October 2019 until late November of that year in Bolivia, in response to claims of electoral fraud in the 2019 general election of 20 October. After 11 November 2019, there were protests by supporters of the outgoing government in response to Jeanine Áñez becoming the acting president of Bolivia. The claims of fraud were made after the suspension of the preliminary vote count, in which incumbent Evo Morales was not leading by a large enough margin (10%) to avoid a runoff, and the subsequent publication of the official count, in which Morales won by just over 10%. Some international observers expressed concern over the integrity of the elections.
Andrónico Rodríguez Ledezma is a Bolivian cocalero activist, political scientist, politician, and trade unionist serving as president of the Senate since 2020. A member of the Movement for Socialism, he serves as senator for Cochabamba. Rodríguez's lengthy career in the cocalero union hierarchy saw him serve as general secretary of the 21 September Workers' Center from 2015 to 2016 and as executive of the Mamoré Bulo Bulo Federation from 2016 to 2018, in addition to a multitude of other minor positions. He has served as vice president of the Coordination Committee of the Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba since 2018 and held office as president of the organization from 2019 to 2020 in the absence of the body's longtime leader, Evo Morales.
The 2021 La Paz municipal election was held in La Paz, Bolivia on Sunday, 7 March 2021, involving separate contests for mayor and all eleven municipal council seats. Incumbent mayor Luis Revilla was eligible to seek a third term but declined, leaving the mayoralty an open contest. The election was won by former minister of public works Iván Arias of the alliance, who attained a near absolute majority of 49.52 percent against a field of ten other candidates. On the municipal ballot, Somos Pueblo won 48.04 percent of the vote, winning the six seats needed to exercise a simple majority on the municipal council, with the Movement for Socialism taking the remaining five seats. Revilla's party, Sovereignty and Liberty, lost both the mayoralty and all representation on the municipal council, concluding a twenty-year period of political continuity that started in 2000 with the assumption of Juan del Granado.
Rebeca Elvira Delgado Burgoa is a Bolivian academic, lawyer, magistrate, and politician who served as president of the Chamber of Deputies from 2012 to 2013. As a member of the Movement for Socialism, she served as a party-list member of the Chamber of Deputies from Cochabamba from 2010 to 2014. Prior to her election to the lower chamber, Delgado served as a party-list member of the Constituent Assembly from Cochabamba from 2006 to 2007 and was vice minister of government coordination from 2008 to 2009. Delgado's near-decade-long political and legislative tenure was preceded by a fifteen-year career as a public servant, during which time she worked as a public defender and examining magistrate, was a magistrate on the Departmental Electoral Court of Cochabamba, and served as the Ombudsman's Office's delegate for the fight against corruption in Cochabamba.
Miriam Marcela Revollo Quiroga is a Bolivian academic, politician, and sociologist who served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies from La Paz, representing circumscription 10 from 2010 to 2015. Though Revollo's political career is closely linked to that of her husband, longtime La Paz Mayor Juan del Granado, her political origins are independent of marriage. A graduate of the higher universities of San Simón and San Andrés, Revollo entered political life as an activist in the student movement and was a steadfast advocate for the inclusion of women in the country's democratic process. Together with her husband, she founded the Fearless Movement, with which she was elected as a party-list member of the Constituent Assembly from La Paz from 2006 to 2007. As a parliamentarian, she continued to work toward the advancement of women's causes, largely supporting the social policies enacted by the ruling Movement for Socialism, even as she simultaneously criticized many of the administration's illiberal practices.
María Gardenia Arauz Menacho is a Bolivian politician and trade unionist who served as a substitute member of the Chamber of Deputies from Beni, representing circumscription 63 from 2010 to 2014.
