OVERVIEW

Presidential elections will be held in Bolivia on 17 August 2025, in a politically volatile environment marked by economic crisis and internal party fragmentation. This cycle features incumbent President Luis Arce (MAS), currently-banned former President Evo Morales (FFV), and right-wing challenger Manfred Reyes Villa (Unity Bloc), as well as MAS-aligned candidate Andrónico Rodríguez, reflecting deep divisions within the ruling party. To assess electoral outcomes, we employ both a long-term fundamentals model and a short-term polling-based trend model. The long-term model, using Q1 2025 data on economic growth and presidential approval ratings, projects Arce to win 37.3% of the first-round vote and gives him a 61.8% probability of reelection. In contrast, short-term polling trends suggest growing momentum for Reyes and limited upward movement for Rodríguez, with Morales lagging significantly. Based on these forecasts, the most probable scenario is a runoff between Arce and Reyes. Our projections are generated using a combination of cross-national electoral forecasting methods, including LASSO-based variable selection and regression trend visualizations, applied to polling and economic data to model candidate trajectories and overall electoral probability.

BACKGROUND

Election & electoral system

Bolivia has a mixed electoral system for its president and legislature. Voters cast two ballots: one for a party list and another for a candidate. The president is elected by absolute majority (over 50% or 40% with a 10% lead). If no candidate meets this, a runoff is held. The president serves a five-year term with reelection possible. The legislature combines proportional representation and first-past-the-post voting for its two chambers.

Candidates & parties

Bolivia's presidential system has power held in parties and people, none with long histories or secure footholds. Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) is a prominent party led by the current president, Luis Arce, who is running for reelection in 2025. His unlikely and unlawful competitor of Evo Morales, former president of Bolivia serving from 2006 to 2019, is running for reelection despite the fact the constitution only allows 3 terms. In addition to this, Evo was the first and only citizen to be hit with a lifetime ban on running for reelection. This was initiated by a national court in 2024. Evo announces reelection in February 2025 with FFV, or Front for Victory. Other runners include a rightwing coalition called Unity Bloc consisting of Doria Medina and Tuto Quiroga.

Issues & cleavages

The main issue surrounding this election is mostly a political battle between the current president, Luis Arce, and the former president and ally, Evo Morales. The ruling party Movement for Socialism, is also split in a factional battle between the Arcistas and the Evistas, which has led to political unrest and violence, with the Evistas, storming a military facility and placing roadblocks around the country and many pro-government protests occurring. On top of this political unrest, President Arce’s government is currently experiencing an economic crisis due to declining natural gas and oil production that has worsened with the pandemic and the political chaos.

“The economic crisis in Bolivia is worsening. Its citizens are facing worrying food and fuel shortages, which has generated widespread discontent and numerous nationwide protests. 2025 is a decisive year for the highland nation, which will hold presidential elections. The results could alleviate its critical situation or worsen it, causing a mass exodus to neighboring countries like Peru.” Infobae

LONG-TERM TRAJECTORY

Our long-term fundamentals forecast features the incumbent’s approval rating and the annual growth rate measured six months before the election. For the most part, the annual growth rate and approval rating are aligned and match with what is occurring; however, starting with the second half of 2024, they start to diverge, and as the black line, the annual growth rate, rises, the approval rating, the blue line, starts declining. This divergence between the two data points shows that while the growth rate did help with approval, events starting in 2024 and near the election have caused Arce’s approval to decline even if the annual growth rate rises.

Our projection model utilized the economic growth and presidential approval data from approximately six months before the election, specifically from the first quarter of 2025, to estimate the first-round vote share and the overall win probability of incumbent Bolivian president Luis Arce. The model forecasts that Arce will receive 37.31% of the votes in the first round, indicating a strong base of support. Although this falls short of an outright majority, the model predicts a 61.820% overall probability of victory, suggesting a favorable path to securing re-election.

SHORT-TERM TREND

According a preponderance of evidence from vote intention polling to date, if the elections were held today, Andronico Rodriguez and Manfred Reyes would emerge victorious in the presidential primaries from August 17 to 19, 2025 and head to a second-round runoff election..

Trends for both Andronico Rodriguez and Manfred Reyes show a significant increase in voter support in early 2025. While the linear projection for Rodríguez indicates a continued gradual increase with low reliability, Reyes suggests a steeper growth toward 2026 with slightly better reliability. Based solely on these projected trends, Reyes could have a slightly more favorable trajectory to win, but the low reliability of both models and the absence of other influencing factors make any prediction highly uncertain.

FINDINGS

Winner(s)

When looking at the data, both the short-term trend and the long trajectory show that Luis Arce of Movement for Socialism and Manfred Reyes of Autonomy for Bolivia have a high enough chance to win the presidency. The long-term trajectory shows Arce with a forecast of 37.30% of the votes in the first round, and the short-term trend with high reliability shows Reyes with 35.51% of the votes. This may lead to a runoff/second round, with the long-term trajectory showing Arce with a 61.8% chance of winning the presidency in the end.

Outlook (governance/economy)

Suppose Luis Arce wins the Bolivian election with the expected 61% of the vote. In that case, the country will likely continue on its path of state-led economic development, preserving fuel subsidies, universal healthcare, and public investment in rural education. Arce’s victory would also reaffirm Bolivia’s alignment with countries like China and Russia, maintain state control over lithium resources, and potentially initiate constitutional reforms to solidify the "plurinational" state model while curbing the return of Evo Morales. However, internal MAS divisions, economic pressure from depleting reserves, and urban discontent could pose serious governance challenges.

On the other hand, if Manfred Reyes Villa pulls off an upset, Bolivia would likely pivot toward a market-oriented model. His administration would push to reduce or eliminate subsidies, introduce public-private partnerships in key sectors, and pursue a federalist reform agenda to increase regional autonomy. Internationally,

Reyes would likely reorient Bolivia toward stronger ties with the U.S. and Western institutions, encouraging foreign investment in lithium and infrastructure. However, such shifts could provoke resistance from MAS-aligned unions, rural communities, and public sector workers, potentially triggering protests and legislative gridlock. A Reyes victory would mark a sharp ideological departure, testing Bolivia’s democratic institutions and capacity for peaceful political transition

Losers (political landscape)

Looking at the data the losers will be Evo Morales of Front for Victory and Andronico Rodriquez of Movement for Socialism, with the short-term trends forecasting Morales a 18% chance and Rodriguez, with low reliability forecasted to get a 25% chance, which is lower than the chances of Reyes and Arce, so that would show that Morales and Rodriguez would not be able to qualify for the runoffs which would then be only Arce and Reyes.

MORE INFORMATION

Data sources

Trading Economy

Methods

Fundamentals model

The long-run fundamentals forecasts are tailored to contexts with few elections. Our method consists of three steps. First, we pool election outcomes for incumbent and incumbent successors across roughly two dozen presidential democracies. Second, we leverage a machine-learning technique called LASSO to select the most predictive economic and political fundamentals measured six months prior to the election. For incumbent party vote shares, this methodology indicated presidential approval, a president running for immediate reelection, quarterly growth (annualized), and indicators for Ecuador and the Philippines. Forecasts of incumbent win probability included the same variables (minus the Philippines) but with the inclusion of "Time-for-Change", a variable indicating the incumbent party seeking more than one consecutive term (per Abramowitz 1988). Finally, we employ the weights from these predictors to forecast the election outcome.

Team

Daniel Cardelino, Rediet Mulugeta, Dani Rangel, Felipe Banda, Maximo Meneses

Coverage

Ecuador (April 13, 2025); Romania (May 11, 2025); Poland Pres (June 5, 2025); Bolivia (August 2025); Chile (November 17, 2025); Canada (April 21, 2025); Australia (May 17, 2025)

Notice: This report is the fruit of a Virtual Exchange between students in Pollitik at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA, USA, and students in the Laboratorio Democracia y Gobierno at the Universidad San Sebastián, in Santiago, Chile. Its projections should not be used as a basis for financial decision-making.