Bolivia’s Double Pandemic: A Coup and COVID-19

The November 2019 ouster of President Evo Morales, followed by the interim government’s harsh crackdown on his supporters, plunged Bolivia into a political crisis just as the COVID-19 pandemic arrived with devastating effect. The interim government’s haphazard response was marred by corruption scandals over procurement of medical supplies. After several delays, a general election was finally held in October 2019. Luis Arce, the presidential candidate of Morales’s Movement Toward Socialism, won decisively. But Morales’s subsequent return from exile signaled that the struggle over his legacy would continue.