Bolivian president warns country at 'breaking point' after weeks of protests

Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz warns the country is at a "breaking point" after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and life-saving medicine. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the country's Indigenous majority have called for the president's resignation. Less than six months ago, the inauguration of centrist president Rodrigo Paz seemed to usher in a new reality for Bolivians reeling from the worst economic crisis in a generation and fed up with two decades of almost uninterrupted socialist leadership. After years of diplomatic isolation, Bolivians took pride in the dozens of international delegations that celebrated Mr Paz's swearing-in as he repaired strained relations with the United States and regional powers. Now, that optimism has been replaced by dread as violent protests shake the government of the Trump administration ally. Demonstrators wielding dynamite have blockaded major cities, leading to shortages of food, fuel and medical supplies. Indigenous and rural Bolivians who backed Mr Paz's campaign promises to up-end the status quo while protecting social welfare have called on him to step down. On Tuesday, Congress lifted restrictions on him announcing a state of emergency, paving the way for Mr Paz to possibly deploy troops to restore order. "The country needs order, and is reaching breaking point," the 58-year-old leader said at a public event in La Paz, on Wednesday, local time, renewing his appeal for dialogue. "If they do not want dialogue ... then there is no other way," he said of the protesters while insisting that he preferred to negotiate. "We have deaths because of the blockades. Someone has to answer for that." Protesters feel abandoned by government Former supporters of Bolivia's long-dominant Movement Toward Socialism party, known by its Spanish acronym MAS, who helped vault Mr Paz to power, have increasingly voiced concern his government does not represent them. Shortly after entering office, Mr Paz struck deals with right-wing parties in Congress. He shut out the populist vice president widely seen as responsible for his electoral success. He named no members of Bolivia's Indigenous majority to high-level posts. He supported a land reform bill to boost agribusiness that Indigenous farmers said put them at risk of eviction. He scrapped fuel subsidies, sending prices surging by nearly 90 per cent. Motorists complained the gasoline was contaminated and ruined their cars. To blunt the blow of price hikes from the Iran war, Mr Paz offered cash transfers to vulnerable families. He hiked the minimum wage up by 20 per cent. He repealed the controversial land law. But he also rebuffed demands for further salary increases, infuriating the national labour union. "It's not that from one day to the next he was asked to resign," said Mirian Huarina, a protest leader. "He had time to provide a solution to these problems and to the demands of different social sectors." Road blockades have brought down governments before By a quirk of geography, barriers thrown up along the slopes leading down to Bolivia's seat of government, La Paz, can completely isolate more than 1.6 million residents of the city and its surroundings, or more than 13 per cent of the country's population. Indigenous movements have long deployed the siege strategy, popularised during a late-18th-century rebellion against Spanish colonialism. In 2003 and 2005, demonstrators blockading La Paz in protest over foreign designs on their country's natural gas reserves toppled two consecutive pro-Western governments, paving the way for the rise of former President Evo Morales, founder of MAS. As roadblocks strangling La Paz enter their fourth week, thousands of trucks loaded with food and other essentials, like oxygen supplies for hospitals, remain stranded on highways. Beef, eggs and fruit have vanished from supermarket shelves. Subsidised chicken is being flown into La Paz via military aircraft. The government said at least four people had died for lack of medical care; hospitals are still operating, but staff are rationing supplies and focusing on critical cases. Shop owners and transport workers opposed to the protests were ramping up pressure on Mr Paz to reopen the roads at any cost. Banging empty pots as they marched downtown on Tuesday, they chanted, "We want solutions! We can't take it anymore!" Pressure grows on Paz to crack down Although security forces have used tear gas to disperse demonstrators and arrested more than 120 people, Mr Paz has resisted calls to deploy greater force to break the blockades. Cognisant that the deaths of protesters at the hands of police may only inflame tensions, Mr Paz has insisted on dialogue as the best way out of the crisis. Mr Paz has offered bonuses to teachers, reached agreements with some protesting miners and convened a council on Wednesday, local time, to include under-represented social sectors in economic decision-making. He slashed his own salary in half, fired his unpopular labor minister and appointed a lawyer from the country's Indigenous majority to the post. Calls are growing for Mr Paz to impose a state of emergency, which would put the military in charge of restoring public order for 60 days. After Congress passed a law lifting restrictions on the army's role in quelling civil unrest late Tuesday, local time, Mr Paz has the constitutional authority to invoke this power. He has described it as an option of last resort. Ex-president Morales watches from the wings Mr Morales, the former union leader who became Bolivia's first Indigenous president in 2006 and ruled for an unprecedented 14 years, is calling for early elections. "Paz only has two paths left: a suicidal decision like militarisation or ... an election in the next 90 days," he wrote on X. For almost two years now, Mr Morales has been hiding out in Bolivia's central coca-growing Chapare region, evading an arrest warrant on human trafficking charges relating to having sex with a 15-year-old girl. He rejects the allegations as politically motivated. Some of the unions and Indigenous groups rallying against Mr Paz are allied with Mr Morales, whose attempts to hold onto power longer than the constitution allowed alienated much of his once-vast base and led to his fraught 2019 ouster. Mr Morales' loyalists — hardened protesters from the coca-growing unions — joined the protest movement last week to demand Mr Paz to step down. Mr Paz's government has accused Mr Morales of funding the demonstrations, which he denies. Global reactions reveal political fault lines Trump-allied governments that recently swept to power across Latin America — from Argentina and Chile to Honduras and Costa Rica — have pledged their support for Mr Paz and denounced the protests as destabilising. President Gustavo Petro of Colombia — among the few leftist leaders still in power in the region — defended the protests as a "struggle for Latin American dignity." Bolivia expelled the Colombian ambassador in response. The United States has struck a hard line, characterising the demonstrations as a coup attempt. "We will not allow criminals and drug traffickers to overthrow democratically elected leaders in our hemisphere," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week. The US Embassy in La Paz said it was closing on Wednesday and Thursday due to the unrest.