Bolivians will vote Sunday in a presidential election pitting candidates promising tougher anti-drug measures against defenders of the country’s nationalist coca policies. The result could reshape how the Andean nation addresses cocaine production, organized crime, and protection of the Amazon.
Two right-wing candidates are leading in the polls: businessman Samuel Doria Medina and former president Jorge Quiroga. Trailing them is the main leftist contender, Senate President Andrónico Rodríguez, the former leader of a coca growers’ association. If no candidate wins a majority in the vote, there is a runoff set for October 19.
With Doria Medina and Quiroga neck-and-neck in the polls, nearly two decades of dominance by the ruling Movement Toward Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo – MAS) appear to be ending. The party is mired in bitter infighting between President Luis Arce and former President Evo Morales, who is barred from running again in 2023.
A change in political direction could bring major shifts in the country’s anti-narcotics strategy and coca cultivation norms.
Upended Drug Policy?
Bolivia is one of the few countries in the world where coca cultivation is legal in regulated amounts for traditional uses such as chewing and tea. Under current law, up to 22,000 hectares are permitted nationwide, but this quota exceeds domestic demand, leaving thousands of hectares’ worth of coca leaf available for diversion into cocaine production.
Bolivia’s coca cultivation reached 31,000 hectares in 2023, up 4 percent from 2022, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Cocaine seizures hit a record 46 tons in 2024, double the previous year, underscoring the country’s growing role as both producer and exporter.
The Chapare and Yungas regions remain central to the coca economy, but candidates differ sharply on how to balance traditional use of coca leaf with curbing the illicit trade.
Doria Medina has centered his campaign on economic reform while pledging tougher anti-drug measures, including complete eradication of surplus coca crops and rehabilitation of illegal drug users, according to his Unity Alliance (Alianza Unidad) platform. He proposes strengthening the Special Force to Combat Drug Trafficking (Fuerza Especial de Lucha Contra el Narcotráfico – FELCN) and creating an anti-drug justice system to target money laundering.
In an interview with Infobae, he accused past governments of “cohabiting with narcotrafficking,” citing Uruguayan trafficker Sebastián Marset, who lived in Bolivia and owned a soccer club, and members of Brazil’s First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC), which operates in Santa Cruz. He has vowed closer coordination with Brazil’s Federal Police, noting that much of Bolivia’s cocaine passes through Brazil en route to Europe.
SEE ALSO: Marset’s Inner Circle Crumbles as the Elusive Uruguayan Trafficker Evades Capture
Quiroga, who was vice president under President Hugo Banzer in the 1990s, then became president after Banzer’s 2001 resignation, is running on a law-and-order platform. He pledges to crack down on cocaine production in Chapare while protecting Yungas coca, which he says is used domestically.
His Free Alliance (Alianza Libre) platform warns that “international criminal structures have established themselves [in Bolivia] under the complacent gaze of the government, as well as its complicity,” turning the country into “a hotel for the big fish of drug trafficking and other international crimes.”
He proposes a policy aimed at cracking down on any coca that feeds the cocaine market, targeting unauthorized plantations and illicit coca sales that “only contribute to strengthening organized and transnational crime.” He also supports bringing back the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which was expelled by Morales in 2008.
Ramiro Cavero, Quiroga’s main economic advisor, said the zero illegal coca policy will focus on coca from Chapare. “We all know that coca from the Chapare isn’t meant to be chewed; it’s not meant for industrial consumption,” Cavero said in an interview with Bolivian news outlet Urgente. “The bulk of it … is meant for the illegal cocaine industry.”
Rodríguez, trailing in polls, is a former Chapare coca growers union leader and current Senate president. Running under the Popular Alliance (Alianza Popular) coalition, his platform mirrors the MAS’s anti-drug stance. He rejects any return of the DEA and believes forced eradication campaigns are used to repress rural communities, he told Bolivian outlet Unitel. In an August debate, Rodríguez accused Quiroga of sending “police and military personnel to mow down peasants” in Chapare during eradication campaigns.
The Alianza Popular platform omits coca cultivation and only briefly mentions illicit economies, prioritizing efforts to “modernize border surveillance and tactical intelligence systems to address transnational threats (drug trafficking, smuggling, illegal mining).”
Environmental Crime Largely Ignored
Beyond increasing coca cultivation, Bolivia faces rampant environmental crime. Deforestation, forest fires, illegal mining, and mercury contamination from gold extraction are chief among concerns. With few park rangers, national reserves remain vulnerable to illegal loggers, miners, and drug traffickers, according to Mongabay.
While economic reform and drug policy dominate the headlines, none of the major candidates offer robust plans to combat rampant environmental crime in the Amazon and beyond. Their economic models remain rooted in extractive practices that are often linked to criminal networks.
Doria Medina offers the most comprehensive plan but lacks details. He proposes zero deforestation by 2030 and prison terms of up to 30 years for intentional fires, ecosystem destruction, and other environmental crimes. His mining reforms call for enforcing environmental compliance and formalizing cooperatives.
Quiroga rejects the “exploitation of non-renewable resources in protected areas and natural reserves,” yet backs expanding the agricultural frontier— which involves clearing forests for farming or ranching. He supports granting mining concessions to private companies and eliminating artisanal or illegal mining that fails to meet new regulations.
Rodríguez favors a state-led approach, including building processing facilities for critical minerals, regulating cooperatives to meet environmental and safety standards, banning mining in protected areas and near water sources, and creating a system to track deforestation, water pollution, fires, and other environmental damage.
InSight Crime Analysis
With a right-wing victory likely, Bolivian coca farmers are bracing for a major shift in drug policy, while experts warn that the country’s mounting environmental crisis will remain neglected.
Coca grower federations in Chapare have been a decisive voting bloc and the backbone of MAS’s dominance for two decades. “They are hegemonic in the region; they decide at their union meetings what they’re going to do, and everyone toes the line,” said Tom Grisaffi, a professor at the University of St. Gallen who has researched coca and cocaine production in Bolivia and Peru.
This time, with the MAS weakened by political infighting, most Chapare unions have opted to endorse a null vote – casting a ballot for no candidate. “They believe they can get about 30% of the vote, which could exceed the support for any major candidate,” according to Grisaffi. The unions hope such a result would significantly weaken the next president’s mandate and make major policy changes harder to justify if they’re lacking broad public support.
Despite the strategy, farmers are already organizing to resist anti-coca measures. “People are very concerned about the politics of zero coca in the tropics of Cochabamba,” Grisaffi said. “They’re discussing how to respond—with protests, roadblocks, mobilizations, and marches.”
SEE ALSO: 6 Illegal Economies Threatening Latin America’s Ecosystems
Even if eradication campaigns and militarization of Chapare go forward, they may not reduce drug trafficking, said Gabriela Reyes Rodas, a Bolivian criminologist and organized crime expert.
“In the past, Bolivia mainly produced cocaine using Bolivian coca leaf and coca paste. But in recent years, because of a gasoline shortage, the ‘air bridge’ has strengthened,” she said. “Small planes from the VRAEM in Peru bring coca paste to be refined in laboratories in Beni, Santa Cruz, and the tropics. Targeting coca leaf is more likely to bring violence than to shrink the cocaine business.”
Rodríguez’s Alianza Popular is also facing narco-scandals. Robin Oscar Justiniano Merubia, investigated three times for drug trafficking and alleged friend of Pedro Montenegro, the PCC’s main operator in Bolivia, is running for deputy for Santa Cruz on the party’s ticket.
“What concerns me in Andrónico’s case is not so much his policies, but who [his party] puts in the Assembly,” said Reyes. “The risk is that someone with links to drug trafficking could shape policy on drug enforcement, citizen security, land seizures, timber trafficking, and more.”
When it comes to environmental reform, the race offers more rhetoric than solutions.
Mining in Bolivia often operates under state protection and weak regulations that blur the line between legal and illegal activity. Local cooperatives—legally recognized associations of small-scale miners who pool resources—control 94% of national gold production, and a 2014 law entrenched their dominance by setting royalties at just 2.5% on reported sales, far lower than private-sector rates.
Many cooperatives are tied to illegal actors lacking environmental licenses and working with questionable firms from China and Colombia. “They subcontract the sites where they have extraction permits to private entrepreneurs, whether foreign or national,” said Reyes. “That’s illegal, because the law forbids cooperatives from partnering with private actors.”
Both Doria Medina and Quiroga have floated changes to the 2014 mining law, but the cooperative sector’s political clout means their proposals remain vague. “They don’t want pre-election conflicts with these sectors,” Reyes said.
Featured Image: Aymara Indigenous people vote in Jesús de Machaca, Bolivia. Credit: Associated Press.