Coalition Building and New Political Actors in Bolivia

Coalition building among political parties truly began in Bolivia after 1985 when the Siles Sauzo minority government’s gross inefficiencies resulted in hyper-inflation, political polarization, and the threat of destabilizing the government. The three dominant political parties at the time (MNR, MIR, and ADN) saw the only way to keep the government intact was through coalition building, and soon this became the dominant political strategy used by the parties. 

Bolivia has a unique presidential electoral system, where if the President does not win the majority (very difficult in a multi-party system) the Congress determines the winner from the top two candidates. The already entrenched system of clientelism developed deeper and more complex under this process and the negotiations between parties for determining the President led to establishment of greater coalition building.  The parties would negotiate on political appointments, key positions within government, and determine the dominant power base of the government. In addition, under the closed list system electoral system, the leaders of the parties were able to follow through on political appointments that were decide/allocated during the coalition negotiations.

The power to give political appointments combined with the heavy clientelism unfortunately did not help the public and widespread dissent at the real and often perceived corruption led to the rise of “anti-system parties”, specifically the MAS (led by Evo Morales) and the MIP.  Electoral reforms in 1991, 1996, and 2004 culminated in the groundbreaking introduction of allowing independent candidates to run for office-fundamentally changing the incentive structure for parties and the coalition building process. The introduction of new political actors on the political stage in Bolivia in recent years has changed the incentive structure for how parties come together to form coalitions. This has undermined the stability that coalition politics and building has provided to the Bolivian political structure for the past 20 years. The incorporation of these new political actors resulting from the reforms have brought numerous challenges that Bolivia is currently struggling with on its rocky road to democracy.