Bolivia’s Congress voted on Tuesday to censure Economy Minister José Gabriel Espinoza, a dramatic legislative rebuke that could force President Rodrigo Paz to remove his top financial official amid a deepening economic crisis marked by fuel shortages and rising inflation. The motion passed with 91 lawmakers voting in favour after Espinoza failed to appear before the legislature to answer questions about his management of the economy, monetary policy and macroeconomic planning.
A constitutional standoff
The government immediately declared the censure unconstitutional. Presidential spokesman José Luis Galvez argued that the vote fell short of the two-thirds majority, or 111 votes of the 166-member Congress, that he said the constitution requires for a valid censure. Only 91 lawmakers supported the motion. “Any censure resolution issued based on these results is unconstitutional,” Galvez said, signalling that Espinoza could seek legal protection from the Constitutional Tribunal as early as Wednesday. Under Bolivian law, once a minister is formally censured, the president must remove them within 24 hours. But the government’s stance suggests Paz may resist the removal while the constitutional question is adjudicated, setting up a tense standoff between the executive and legislative branches. Espinoza said his failure to attend reflected “extreme” politicization and cited scheduling conflicts with a trip to Santa Cruz to address fuel supply issues and an upcoming visit to Brazil.
Mounting pressure on a new government
The censure compounds an already turbulent period for Paz, who took office in November 2025 after ending two decades of socialist rule. His government has been battered by protests since early May, when miners, schoolteachers, transportation workers and Indigenous groups took to the streets demanding wage increases, economic stability and an end to the privatization of state companies. Roadblocks choked routes into La Paz, forcing the government to airlift food supplies into the capital with help from Argentine military aircraft. Inflation hit 14 percent year-over-year in April, and the prices of meat, chicken and vegetables surged in supermarkets. Espinoza had already faced criticism over the alleged purchase of an Audi vehicle at a declared price well below market value, which he attributed to a paperwork error. The economy minister negotiated a deal with protesting miners in May but broader unrest has continued, and a group of eight neighbouring nations including Argentina, Chile and Peru expressed public concern about Bolivia’s stability.
What comes next
The political crisis comes at a sensitive moment for Bolivia’s economy. Paz came to power promising to end the country’s worst economic crisis in four decades, marked by acute shortages of foreign currency and fuel. He scrapped long-standing fuel subsidies that had drained the treasury’s dollar reserves but has so far failed to stabilize supplies. If the Constitutional Tribunal upholds the censure, Paz will be forced to find a replacement for Espinoza at a time when his reform agenda faces resistance from a hostile Congress. If the court sides with the government, it could deepen legislative-executive tensions and embolden opposition forces already mobilized in the streets.
Sources: Reuters; teleSUR; Straits Times; La Patria
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