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Paz's cabinet hollows out as Bolivia's worst crisis in 40 years hits the streets

Paz's cabinet hollows out as Bolivia's worst crisis in 40 years hits the streets

Defence, education and labour ministers gone in ten days; ~100 roadblocks, fuel and food shortages, and calls for the new president to quit

Leaders· worsening Quién decide·El dinero de quién ·6 takes ·actualizado 24 jun 2026

Summary

Bolivia's new president Rodrigo Paz lost three cabinet ministers in ten days as the country's worst economic crisis in four decades spilled into the streets. Labour Minister Edgar Morales departed around 21 May; on 2 June, Defence Minister Marcelo Salinas and Education Minister Beatriz García de Achá resigned, Salinas replaced by anti-drug official Ernesto Justiniano. The trigger (El dinero de quién): a December 2025 decree ending fuel subsidies, on top of collapsing energy output and a chronic US-dollar shortage. Miners, teachers, farmers and transport workers mounted ~100 roadblocks nationwide, choking food, fuel and medicine into La Paz and El Alto. The government declared a 90-day state of emergency banning blockades. Protesters demand Paz quit (Quién decide); the cabinet itself reportedly split over dialogue versus repression.

The split

International reportage (Al Jazeera, Euronews) frames it as governability under economic strain. Left/labour outlets (Peoples Dispatch) center the miners and read the reshuffle as austerity's fallout. Regional desks (Latin Times) surface the internal cabinet rift over how to respond. The common thread is the resignations and the roadblocks; the divergence is whether Paz is a beleaguered reformer or the author of the shock that lit the fuse. State-of-emergency framing sits against protest-legitimacy framing.

By the numbers

  • 3 — cabinet ministers out in roughly ten days (labour, defence, education).
  • ~100 — roadblocks reported nationwide, nearly double two weeks earlier.
  • 90 days — duration of the declared nationwide state of emergency.
  • Dec 2025 — fuel-subsidy-ending decree that preceded the unrest.
  • 4 decades — described scale of Bolivia's economic crisis.

Why it matters

A months-old government already shedding ministers and facing resignation demands signals fragile governability in a lithium- and gas-significant Andean state. Prolonged blockades and dollar scarcity threaten supply chains, regional stability and any path out of the fiscal crisis.

What to watch

  • Whether further ministers resign or Paz himself faces a removal push.
  • Negotiations with miners' and transport unions to lift the roadblocks.
  • The state of emergency: enforcement, extension, or escalation to repression.
  • Fuel and dollar measures — any reversal or IMF-style backstop.