Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz declared a state of emergency across the entire national territory on Saturday June 20 after more than six weeks of protests and road blockages, claiming to have exhausted “all avenues of dialogue”.
This decision comes just hours after the signing of an agreement with the country’s main trade union center, the Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB), which announced the lifting of pressure measures aimed at obtaining the resignation of the head of state.
“After exhausting all avenues of dialogue, reaching agreements with those whose demands were legitimate and identifying those who used violence to try to destabilize Bolivia, we took the decision to declare a state of exception throughout the national territory,” Rodrigo Paz said in a televised statement.
A deep crisis
At the beginning of May, the COB began a protest movement to protest against the lack of government responses to the economic crisis facing the country, the most serious in forty years. Peasants and factory and mine workers gradually joined the movement, rejecting the center-right president’s reform proposals. His coming to power in November ended twenty years of socialist governments.
Roadblocks across the country have led to shortages of food, medicine and fuel in several cities across the country, including La Paz, its administrative capital. It was after the opening of a dialogue last week between the government and the COB that the two parties reached an agreement.
“From now on, the pressure measures are lifted at the national level,” announced the leader of the trade union center Mario Argollo.
President Rodrigo Paz, for his part, defended his negotiation strategy rather than the use of force. “Dialogue is always an option, the first option. Force is only for those who choose violence,” he said.
” Treason “
However, not all of the mobilized sectors signed up to the agreement. Peasant groups, as well as coca farmers from Chapare, the stronghold of former president Evo Morales (2006-2019) in the center of the country, are continuing their mobilization.
Demonstrators in La Paz on June 10, 2026
MARVIN RECINOS / AFP
“We have decided to toughen up the roadblocks,” the head of one of the country’s main farmers’ unions, Antonio Mallku, told the Unitel television channel. “The indigenous brothers felt betrayed” by Mario Argollo and the COB, he added. Although the number of roadblocks, which had exceeded a hundred at the height of the protests, has decreased, around fifty remain in place.
Restore circulation and bring the agreement to life
The president said he had ordered the police and armed forces “to restore free movement, regain control of the roads and guarantee the security of the population”. He warned that people continuing the blockades or resorting to violence would face “the full force of the law”.
Under the terms of the agreement signed Friday with the COB, the government has notably committed not to privatize public companies, a major demand of the unions. Working groups bringing together ministers and union officials must also be set up to examine several demands of the movement, in particular on the fate of people arrested during clashes with the police. According to the Ombudsman, more than a hundred people have been arrested since the start of the protest.
