
Bolivian President Evo Morales speaks during inauguration ceremonies for the new presidential palace in La Paz on Aug. 9, 2018. Public resistance to the once immensely popular Morales is rising, fueled in part by his decision to thwart presidential term limits and seek a fourth term next year.
With President Evo Morales' once immense support in decline, Bolivia's next presidential election, in October 2019, risks becoming a flashpoint for political unrest — though Morales likely remains just popular enough to win re-election. In February 2016, Morales asked voters to remove presidential term limits from the constitution. After a bare majority said no, Morales turned to the country's Constitutional Court to end term limits anyway. Now, a growing opposition movement is trying to prevent him from running for office for a fourth time. The president's defiance of a narrow popular vote makes unrest plausible after next year's election. A Growing Resistance The narrow margin by which Morales lost the 2016 constitutional referendum indicates that the 2019 presidential election could turn into a political confrontation between the ruling Movement Toward Socialism party and the opposition.