In late October 2014, when the results of the general elections were in, Evo Morales, looking out from the balcony of the Bolivian Presidential Palace, addressed throngs of supporters gathered in the Plaza Murillo below. “This victory,” he said, “is dedicated to Fidel Castro, to Hugo Chávez, who rests in peace, to all of the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist presidents and governments.”

With 61 percent of the popular vote going to Morales’s Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement toward Socialism, MAS), the divided opposition had been crushed, just as they had been in 2005 and 2009. Multimillionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina of Unidad Demócrata (Democratic Unity, UD) placed a distant second, with 24 percent. Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, who briefly assumed the presidency in 2001 after the death of one-time dictator Hugo Banzer, garnered only nine percent for his Partido Demócrata Cristiano (Christian Democratic Party, PDC).

Rounding out the field, the center-left ex-mayor of La Paz, Juan del Granado, received a paltry 3 percent for his Movimiento Sin Miedo (Movement without Fear, MSM), an erstwhile ally of the MAS. And the Partido Verde de Bolivia (Green Party of Bolivia, PVB), under the indigenous leadership of Fernando Vargas, also won only three percent.