Arce–MAS fracture

What this driver is

Arce–MAS fracture is one continuing Bolivian mechanism: the 2023–2025 split of Movimiento al Socialismo between President Luis Arce and founder Evo Morales, the 26 June 2024 Plaza Murillo military assault that Arce called a coup and Zúñiga called a popularity stunt, the November 2024 TCP validation of the El Alto MAS congress that recognised Grover García instead of Morales, the 14 May 2025 withdrawal from a re-election bid as the same court upheld Morales’s term-limit bar, the 17 August 2025 first-round collapse of the MAS ticket to a few percent, and the 8 November 2025 handover to Rodrigo Paz.

Neighbouring mechanisms — BCB reserve prints, INE inflation, US/CAF financing after the handover — can move with this file or against it. They do not replace it. A Warwick degree is not this node. This node is a MAS civil war that emptied the legislature and a dollar-and-fuel shortage that emptied queues.

It applies to Bolivia from the 2023 Morales candidacy announcement through the 2025 election collapse and the December 2025 Fondioc arrest.

The legal core is the TCP’s term-limit line, the El Alto MAS congress of 3–5 May 2024 as later validated in November, Arce’s 14 May 2025 withdrawal, TSE’s 17 August 2025 first-round count, the 8 November 2025 oath of Rodrigo Paz, and the 10–12 December 2025 arrest and five-month pre-trial detention. A campaign adjective does not change those texts.

Mechanism

The file moves welfare through named channels.

First, a party split. Morales announced a 2025 run. Arce’s faction held an El Alto congress in May 2024 and named Grover García. Morales held Lauca Ñ. In November 2024 the TCP validated El Alto. TSE later treated García as the person who could register a MAS candidate. Morales called lawfare. Quote the court.

Second, a contested palace hour. On 26 June 2024 General Juan José Zúñiga’s units rammed the Casa Grande del Pueblo. Arce called it a coup, appointed new commanders, and Zúñiga was arrested the same evening. Zúñiga told reporters, without offering evidence, that Arce had asked him to “raise something up” to boost popularity. AP recorded both the ram and the allegation. Store both.

Third, fuel and dollars. Gas exports fell. BCB liquid reserves dried. Parallel-market premia and fuel queues sat from 2023 into 2025. INE later printed inflation far above the early-Arce years. Quote BCB/INE.

Fourth, a first-round wipeout. On 17 August 2025 MAS, with interior minister Eduardo del Castillo on the ticket after Arce’s May withdrawal, took a few percent and two deputy seats. Rodrigo Paz and Jorge Quiroga went to a 19 October runoff. Paz won. Handover 8 November 2025 is a completed constitutional transfer.

Fifth, a post-office arrest. On 10 December 2025 police detained Arce on Fondioc-era embezzlement allegations from his economy-minister years. On 12 December a judge ordered five months’ pre-trial detention. Arce denied wrongdoing and called it political. The $700 million figure is an allegation from Paz officials. Quote AP/Reuters.

Evidence base

The best evidence is TSE counts, TCP resolutions, same-week Reuters/AP wires, and BCB/INE prints.

Reuters recorded the 26 June 2024 palace hour, the November 2024 Morales bar, the May 2025 court uphold, the October 2025 runoff, and the December 2025 detention. AP recorded the coup hour, the five-month detention order, and the Fondioc allegation. Infobae recorded the TCP MAS-leadership resolution. Crisis Group recorded the schism’s legislative cost.

Evidence is strongest for a TSE night, a TCP resolution, and an arrest date. It is weaker for any unique first-day parallel-market coefficient. This page does not invent a unique dollar-queue total.

Effect on welfare indicators

This driver, when it actually runs, is a first-order channel into political-polarization and fiscal-adjacent series only where a sourced path exists.

An education, CPI, or WJP path does not follow from a MAS congress without a sourced channel. Missing coefficients stay missing. This catalog does not clone family-template DII onto the node.

The welfare sign of strengthening this driver is negative: a split that emptied MAS, a contested palace hour, fuel-and-dollar shortages, and a post-office arrest that is not a completed conviction. The 8 November 2025 handover is a separate transfer fact. It does not rebate the queues.

Interactions and contested points

The mechanism interacts with Morales-dated rows and with Paz-era financing. Reinforcement is obvious when TCP, TSE, and fuel queues sit in the same term. Offsetting is the claim that 2020–21 COVID recovery rebates 2024–25 shortages. Those are different years. They can be stored. They do not cancel 17 August 2025.

The strongest competing view is that Zúñiga acted alone, so the palace hour is a plus for Arce. Store the ram, the arrest, and the unevidenced self-coup claim.

A second competing view is that Fondioc is a completed theft of $700 million. It is an allegation with a detention order. A later verdict with a date would be a new fact.

Established: 26 June 2024 palace hour; November 2024 TCP MAS leadership and Morales bar; 14 May 2025 withdrawal; 17 August 2025 first round; 8 November 2025 handover; 10–12 December 2025 arrest and detention order. Not established: a unique self-coup finding, a unique BCB integer as Contribution.size, or a completed Fondioc conviction. A later verdict would not rename this driver as a 2020 recovery success.

What is documented

Luis Arce entered Bolivia's presidency in 2020 as the candidate of the Movement Toward Socialism, but the governing movement later split between Arce's state apparatus and Evo Morales's personal and territorial base. By 2024 the conflict was no longer an internal disagreement hidden inside one party. Rival factions contested party leadership, candidate selection, control of organisations, and the legitimacy of each other's decisions while Bolivia's economic position deteriorated. The failed 26 June 2024 military action led by General Juan José Zúñiga exposed the vulnerability of a government already facing low approval, shortages of foreign exchange, falling gas revenue, and weak legislative control. Reuters described MAS as fractured between Arce and Morales. In November 2024 Arce's faction celebrated a party decision that left Morales outside the leadership he had dominated for roughly a quarter-century. The split carried into the 2025 electoral cycle: Arce eventually withdrew from reelection, Morales remained barred from another presidential run, and the left entered the contest divided rather than under the single organisational umbrella that had structured Bolivian politics for years.

Who moves this driver

Luis Arce moves the driver through control of the presidency, his faction's contest for MAS institutions, and his eventual decision not to seek reelection. Evo Morales moves it through the rival claim to party leadership, mobilisation of loyal social organisations, and insistence on returning to the presidency despite judicial barriers. Neither actor alone explains the fragmentation. Party courts, the electoral tribunal, the constitutional court, union and coca-grower organisations, legislators, and emerging left candidates each altered the bargaining structure.

Welfare pathways

The democratic route is Having a say in government. Internal party competition can increase choice, but when factional control over legal registration and candidate access becomes the main battlefield, voters may receive less meaningful representation rather than more. The institutional route is Political stability and absence of violence gap from the highest governance score. For this gap measure, a larger value is worse. Road blockades, coup fears, military intervention, and factional mobilisation can widen that gap even when they arise from different causes.

What is uncertain

Bolivia's economic crisis is not simply a product of the Arce–Morales split. The decline of gas production, fuel subsidies, reserve depletion, exchange-rate pressures, and long-running investment choices predate the open rupture. Nor is every protest by Morales supporters evidence of anti-democratic intent; social mobilisation has a legitimate place in Bolivian politics. The constitutional bar on Morales also has a legal history that cannot be reduced to Arce's preference. The driver should therefore track the political fracture itself: competing organisational authority, blocked legislation, rival candidacies, mobilisation, and institutional conflict. It should not absorb the entire Bolivian economy or assign every act of unrest to one faction.

The unresolved question is how competing claims to MAS organisational authority shape legislative calendars, candidate-registration disputes, and the practical ability of each faction to obstruct the other. Voters may not always be able to distinguish factional blockade from substantive policy disagreement, while gas decline, shortages, and wider economic pressures retain causes beyond the party split.