Bolivian Senate Strips Limits on Emergency Power as Crisis Deepens

Defense · Policy & Posture

Monday, May 25, 2026 — 04:30 BRT — By The Rio Times Defense Desk

The Bolivian Senate did not constrain President Rodrigo Paz on Sunday. It handed him a larger hammer — and did so inside the ceremonial chamber where Latin American independence was first declared, on the eve of the national anniversary, by waiving its own procedural rules to act in minutes rather than days.

The 118th ordinary session of the Bolivian Senate was scheduled as a ceremonial occasion: a tribute, held at the Casa de la Libertad in Sucre, to the 217th anniversary of the first cry for Latin American independence on May 25, 1809. The chamber had not been expected to legislate. Late Sunday afternoon, in what local press uniformly described as a surprise move, the Senate President Diego Esteban Mateo Ávila Navajas opened a one-article project: the abrogation of Law N° 1341 of July 23, 2020, the statute that since the Jeanine Áñez interim government had regulated how a Bolivian executive could declare a state of exception. Under a dispensation of standard procedural rules, the project was approved by more than two-thirds of senators present, in what one outlet called “tiempo récord.” Only three senators, identified with Vice President Edmand Lara’s bloc, voted against. The bill went immediately to the Chamber of Deputies, which declined a virtual session and sent the text to the Commission on Constitutional Matters; the earliest sanctioning date is Tuesday, May 26.

The vote took place against a country in its most volatile internal-security configuration since 2019. La Paz has been blockaded for more than three weeks by the Central Obrera Boliviana, campesino federations and groups aligned with former president Evo Morales, all demanding the resignation of Rodrigo Paz Pereira six months into his presidency. Forty-seven blockade points have been documented across six of the country’s nine departments. Hospitals are running out of supplies, supermarkets are half-stocked, and an emergency air bridge from Santa Cruz and Cochabamba is provisioning the capital. The economy is projected to contract 3.3 percent in 2026 on top of a 1.58 percent contraction in 2025, with inflation at 20.4 percent and an estimated 85 percent of the population in the informal sector. On Saturday, May 23, government convoys clashed with protesters on the La Paz–Oruro highway and in sectors of El Alto, leaving one confirmed fatality and an undetermined number of wounded. The Defensoría del Pueblo, the Catholic Church and the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights of El Alto issued a joint pronouncement on May 24 demanding an “urgent, independent and transparent” clarification of the events.

Law N° 1341, drafted under the Senate presidency of Eva Copa during the post-electoral interim government, had not created Bolivia’s state of exception. That instrument exists at constitutional rank in Article 137 of the Constitution of the Plurinational State. What Law 1341 did was *regulate* the constitutional authority: it imposed strict time limits on emergency measures, established causal categories, fixed inviolable rights that could not be suspended even under exception, required legislative oversight, and crucially attached criminal liability to any official who exceeded the framework. Abrogating Law 1341 does not remove the state of exception from Bolivia’s legal architecture. It removes the apparatus that prevented that constitutional clause from being exercised at the executive’s sole discretion.

Why the move runs through Paz’s own coalition

The three votes against came from senators aligned with Vice President Edmand Lara — the running mate who has been politically distancing himself from Paz almost since inauguration. The arithmetic matters: the abrogation was carried not by an opposition Senate confronting Paz, but by Paz’s governing bloc removing the procedural ceiling on the President’s own emergency authority. Ávila’s framing on Sunday was direct: “no es que se atenta contra la democracia o el estado de derecho, todo lo contrario, lo que se busca es más bien una ley que permita preservar y hacer respetar los derechos de todos los bolivianos, no solo de una minoría que tenga derecho a protestar.” That is the public theory. The operational theory is harder to miss: with 47 blockade points still in place, two failed desbloqueo operations on the books, and one death already on Saturday’s ledger, Paz now has fewer legal obstacles to a full Article 137 declaration than he had on Saturday morning.

Why the timing was chosen

The session was the Sunday before Monday’s May 25 national anniversary, held in the Casa de la Libertad — the chamber where the first independence proclamation in Latin America was signed in 1809. Procedurally, the Senate was meeting to honour Chuquisaca. Substantively, the chamber that delivered Bolivia’s foundational liberal moment was the chamber that this Sunday removed an entire generation of post-2020 constraints on the executive. The Chamber of Deputies could in principle sanction the abrogation Tuesday May 26 once the Commission on Constitutional Matters returns its report; the chamber declined a virtual extraordinary session Sunday but the urgency was visible in the trámite waiver in the Senate. If Deputies sanctions, presidential promulgation by Paz would put the statute out of force within hours.

Why this matters outside Bolivia

The Latin American pattern over the past eighteen months has been the steady accumulation of executive emergency authority under internal-security framing. Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa has run nationwide curfew blocks since 2024 under successive state-of-exception declarations. México’s Claudia Sheinbaum has compressed federal command rotations and expanded SEDENA deployment in nine states. Argentina’s Javier Milei has deployed ten thousand troops along the northern border under a 2025 ministerial resolution. Bolivia’s move on Sunday is a more aggressive version of the same direction: not a new emergency declaration, but the legal pre-positioning to declare one without the post-2020 constraints. The eight-country regional declaration of May 15 in support of Paz — Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panamá, Paraguay, Perú — signals that the region’s right and centre governments view the Bolivian situation as a Maduro-adjacent destabilization threat rather than a labour dispute. None of those governments is likely to object publicly to a hardened domestic legal toolkit in La Paz. The principal external constraint on Paz remains diplomatic, and as of Sunday evening it was less binding than it was on Saturday.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a state of exception in Bolivia?

A constitutional authority, codified in Article 137 of the Constitution of the Plurinational State, that permits the President to declare emergency measures in response to grave internal commotion, external aggression, public calamity or public security breakdown. Once declared, it authorizes the suspension of certain civil guarantees and the deployment of the Armed Forces for internal order tasks. Law N° 1341 of 2020 had regulated how that constitutional authority could be exercised; the Senate vote of May 24 abrogates that regulating statute but leaves Article 137 itself untouched.

Why was Law 1341 introduced in 2020?

It was drafted under the Senate presidency of Eva Copa during the post-electoral interim government of Jeanine Áñez, following the November 2019 political crisis. The framers’ concern was the risk that a future executive would invoke Article 137 to suspend rights, militarize the country, or extend emergency rule without parliamentary check. The statute attached procedural limits, temporal caps, an enumerated catalog of inviolable rights, and personal criminal liability for officials who exceeded the framework.

Has Paz declared a state of exception yet?

No. As of Sunday evening Paz had not invoked Article 137. On Tuesday May 19 his government explicitly ruled out a declaration after a cabinet evaluation, opting instead to reinforce military and police deployment. Paz subsequently reorganized his cabinet on Wednesday May 20 and created a new Economic Council. His own public language on the limits of executive patience — “todo tiene un límite” — has hardened across the week. The abrogation of Law 1341 changes what a declaration would legally permit; it does not change the political question of whether Paz will move.

What happens next?

The Chamber of Deputies will receive the Commission on Constitutional Matters report no earlier than Tuesday May 26. If Deputies sanctions the abrogation, the text returns to the executive for promulgation by Paz, after which Law 1341 is out of force. Paz then has the option, but not the obligation, to declare a state of exception under Article 137. Independently of the abrogation, the desbloqueo operations on the ground are continuing; the May 23 attempt failed and the May 25 working week opens with most blockade points still active.

Connected Coverage

The Bolivia crisis was the lead operational story in the most recent Latin America Defense Monitor (Issue #11, May 16–23, 2026), where it was framed through the Corredor Humanitario operation and the Chile–Argentina C-130 airlift. The Sunday Senate move sets a new analytical anchor for Issue #12.