Bolivian protests calling for centre-right President Rodrigo Paz to resign intensified on Monday as demonstrators swarmed government buildings and a protest leader faced terrorism charges over the unrest.
Riot police clashed with protesters for hours, tear gas shrouded the streets of La Paz, shops were shuttered, and supplies ran low due to protest blockades choking routes into La Paz.
Thousands of farmers, miners, teachers, workers from other sectors and Indigenous communities have led weeks-long protests calling for wage increases, economic stability and an end to the privatisation of state-owned companies.
The Andean nation is suffering its worst economic ordeal in the past four decades, with year-on-year inflation hitting 14 per cent in April.
While calm had largely returned to La Paz by Monday evening, those on the streets are furious with Paz, a conservative who assumed the presidency less than six months ago following two decades of socialist rule.
He scrapped two-decade-old fuel subsidies that had drained the treasury’s international dollar reserves, but so far he has failed to stabilise fuel supplies.
“We want him to resign because he’s incompetent. Bolivia is going through a moment of chaos,” 60-year-old farmer Ivan Alarcon, who travelled around 90 kilometres (60 miles) from Caquiaviri in western Bolivia to protest, said.
On Monday, riot police used tear gas to prevent protesting miners from entering La Paz’s main square, where government buildings are located, while the demonstrators hurled explosives and stones back at them.
Images released by the government showed protesters looting an office and making off with furniture, computers, monitors and other equipment.
Authorities have not reported any injuries.
And while no official arrest tally has been released, television station Unitel reported more than 100 people were detained.
The public prosecutor said Monday it was issuing an arrest warrant for the leader of the country’s largest union, COB, accusing him of terrorism and inciting crime.
“The warrant for COB secretary-general Mario Argollo is in the hands of the general command of the Bolivian Police,” Attorney General Roger Mariaca told a press conference.
The COB has joined calls for Paz to step down.
Supporters of former socialist president Evo Morales, who was in power from 2006 to 2019, arrived in La Paz on Monday after marching for seven days from Oruro, about 180 kilometres south of the capital.
“The protesters are political operatives seeking to serve as a stepping stone for coca leaf grower Morales to return to power,” Economy Minister Jose Gabriel Espinoza told Red Uno television.
After clashing with protesters Saturday, police and military forces managed to temporarily open some roads into La Paz as the city suffered severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel.
“One protester died in those skirmishes after falling into a ditch,” deputy interior minister Hernan Paredes said.
Protesters resumed their blockades on Monday.
On his X account, Morales expressed solidarity with the protesters and described union leaders as victims of ‘brutal persecution’.
Many supporters of Morales, whoserved as the country’s first Indigenous president, fear that authorities will soon capture himd. He has been in hiding since 2024 in the Chapare coca-growing region in central Bolivia.
The Bolivian Highway Administration reported at least 32 roadblocks on the country’s highways on Monday.
The government, which has been flying food into the capital since 10 May, announced it would seek to open blockaded highways around La Paz on Tuesday for a six-hour period to establish a ‘humanitarian corridor.’
