Bolivia emerged from its worst social crisis in decades on June 24 as the last remaining roadblocks were lifted following a pause announced by coca grower unions loyal to former president Evo Morales, leaving the country without a single active blockade for the first time in 48 days. However, analysts and opposition figures warn that the underlying tensions remain unresolved.

The cocalero federations of the Trópico de Cochabamba, the final holdout after most other protest groups reached agreements with President Rodrigo Paz's centrist government or stood down following his state of emergency declaration, announced what they termed a "cuarto intermedio," a temporary recess rather than a surrender. "For now, a pause. This is not surrender; the struggle will continue," said union leader Isidro Auca, who also directed pointed accusations at COB executive secretary Mario Argollo, accusing him of betraying the movement by reaching an earlier agreement with the government. Morales, speaking alongside federation leaders, echoed the message: "For now it is a pause," he said, maintaining his accusations that Paz intends to hand Bolivia's natural resources to US multinationals and raise fuel and utility prices, claims the government denies.

The Bolivian Highway Administration confirmed on June 24 that no active roadblocks remained, though some stretches are still impassable due to debris left by the protests. Authorities expect all routes to be fully cleared within hours. Routes linking La Paz and El Alto to Chile and Peru have been reopened, allowing long-delayed shipments of fuel, food and medical supplies to resume. Passenger bus services have restarted in major cities.

The human and economic cost of the crisis has been severe. At least 16 people died during the seven weeks of unrest, 13 of them because blocked roads prevented timely medical care. Bolivia's Cámara Nacional de Industrias estimated losses exceeding $2.5bn, equivalent to roughly 5% of GDP, while other estimates cited by the government placed the total damage above $3bn.

Defence Minister Ernesto Justiniano said the cocalero pause was the result of popular exhaustion rather than generosity. "The people told them: enough of the blockade, enough pressure, enough suffering," he said. That sentiment was reflected in an editorial published by Bolivian newspaper El País, which noted: "There are no absolute winners or losers. Social organisations retreat to reorganise. The government remains standing, yes, but considerably weakened. Bolivia once again confirms that prolonging conflicts to exhaustion rarely resolves the deep causes that originated them."

Analysts were similarly cautious about what the reopening of roads actually resolves. Evan Ellis, a Latin America expert at the US Army War College, said the state of emergency enacted on June 21 had provided useful short-term stabilisation by giving security forces a legal framework to act, but described Bolivia as trapped in multiple overlapping crises, according to the Miami Herald. "When a country is broke and continues making promises to groups that used disruption to gain concessions, that creates frustration among everyone else," Ellis said, pointing to the government's commitments on wage increases, infrastructure spending and subsidies despite limited fiscal capacity.

Ellis also warned that the protest movement's apparent success in extracting concessions from the government had set a dangerous precedent. "They held the country hostage and got results. That teaches them pressure works," he said. Bolivia is already enduring its worst economic crisis in four decades, with rising inflation, falling foreign reserves and persistent public anger over fuel prices.

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, former Bolivian defence minister and director of the Miami-based Inter-American Institute for Democracy, offered a starker analysis. He argued that Paz had won the presidency in late 2025 but not control of the Bolivian state, with figures tied to the Morales decade-long era still deeply embedded across the judiciary, security forces, bureaucracy and prosecutorial system. "Rodrigo Paz has taken control of the government, but not of power," he said, as quoted by the Miami Herald.

At the centre of Bolivia's political paralysis, both analysts agreed, stands Morales himself. The former controversial hard-left president has remained in Chapare since October 2024, shielded by loyalists from an arrest warrant related to aggravated human trafficking charges involving a minor during his presidency. The government and the US accuse him of financing and orchestrating the blockades to destabilise Paz and force a return to power. Morales denies all the allegations. Ellis said removing Morales from the equation would be operationally complex, given the penetration of security forces by figures loyal to him in Chapare, but potentially essential. "If he solves the Evo problem, many of the other problems become manageable. If he doesn't, none of them are."