The Movement for Socialism – Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (; MAS or MAS-IPSP) is a socialist political party in Bolivia. Its followers are known as Masistas.
In the December 2005 election, MAS-IPSP won the first majority victory ever won by a single Bolivian party since Bolivia's return to democracy, electing Evo Morales as president. The party went on to win the next four general elections by a majority, ruling until 2025, when their support collapsed during that year's election. MAS–IPSP also dominated the municipal elections during this period.
MAS-IPSP evolved out of the movement to defend the interests of coca growers and is rooted in indigenous mobilization. Morales has articulated the goals of his party and popular organizations as the need to achieve plurinational unity, and to develop a new hydrocarbon law which guarantees 50% of revenue to Bolivia, although political leaders of MAS-IPSP in later years showed interest in complete nationalization of the fossil fuel industries, as well as the country's lithium deposits.
During Arce's government, the party was divided into two internal factions: the "Arcistas" (Renovator Bloc), which defends Luis Arce's management and seeks the renovation of the party leadership, which is chaired by Grover García, and the "Evistas", which defends Morales's leadership and seeks his re-election in the 2025 Bolivian general election. On 4 October 2023, President Luis Arce and Vice President David Choquehuanca were expelled from the party by a decision of the board chaired by Evo Morales. However, the Arcista faction did not recognize the expulsion. he and his supporters later went on to found a new party, EVO Pueblo.
History
Origins
The roots of MAS-IPSP can be traced to the closures of the Bolivian Mining Corporation and shut-down of various mines during the 1980s. Thousands of former miners became coca farmers as their means of survival, but also encountered new hardships in their new profession. The growth of the coca farmer community resulted in a sharp numerical growth of organizations such as Unified Syndical Confederation of Peasant Workers of Bolivia (CSUTCB) and Syndicalist Confederation of Intercultural Communities of Bolivia (CSCIB). The movement built alliances with the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Eastern Bolivia (CIDOB) and mobilized joint protests in a 1992 campaign titled "500 years of resistance of the indigenous peoples", culminating in a march to La Paz where a protest was held on 12 October 1992 (Columbus Day). The 1992 campaign marked the emergence of a 'peasant-Indigenous' movement.
However, CSUTCB was wary of building a political party to contest state power. The experiences of the 1980s, when the CSUTCB leadership had been divided over electoral candidatures (of leaders such as Genaro Flores and Víctor Hugo Cárdenas) had been negative. Rather the organization began discussing the possibility of launching a 'political instrument', a structure in which the trade unions would enter as collective members.
Carlos Burgoa Maya traces the initiative for a political instrument to the Third Congress of the CSUTCB (26 June–3 July 1987, Cochabamba) in which several proposals were merged into a document proposing an "Assembly of Nationalities" including traditional authorities to forge "political instruments of the nationalities." In the COB's 9th Congress (May 1992, Sucre), a thesis for worker-indigenous unity in "constructing a political instrument" was approved. From 1996 onwards, Evo Morales was a rising star in the ASP leadership. Soon he became a competitor of Veliz. Internal conflict emerged between the followers of Morales and Veliz — evistas and alejistas. ASP wanted to contest the 1997 national elections, but never obtained the registration of a political party at the CNE. Instead, the group contested the election of the lists of the United Left. Veliz was candidate for the presidency and for parliament (on the proportional representation list). However, many trade unions decided not to support Veliz's candidature, accusing him of having manipulated the candidate lists of the United Left. Four ASP members of the Chamber of Deputies were elected from the Chapare Province (the entire United Left group): Evo Morales, Román Loayza Caero, Félix Sanchéz Veizaga and Néstor Guzmán Villarroel.
Foundation and local elections
After the 1997 elections a split occurred in ASP and Evo Morales was expelled from the organization. In 1998 the supporters of Evo Morales founded the Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (IPSP). Notably, the majority of the grassroots supporters of ASP sided with Morales in the split.
At the time of its foundation, an IPSP flag was adopted. It was brown and green, with a sun in the middle. The decision to go for elections as MAS was taken in Cochabamba in 1998. IPSP decided to adopt the name, banner and colours (cobalt blue, black, and white) of MAS. In January 1999, the organization adopted the name MAS-IPSP. In the 1999 elections Quispe aligned himself with Veliz's group, which had decided to contest elections through the Communist Party of Bolivia. MAS-IPSP itself however stressed that the adaptation of the name MAS was a mere formality, and the membership cards issued by the organization carried the slogan "legally MAS, legitimately IPSP". According to a study by Xavier Albó and Victor Quispe, the vast majority of the MAS-IPSP councilors elected in the 1999 municipal election were indigenous.
Years of struggle
During the years of 1998–2002, the grassroot base of MAS-IPSP was consolidated, as a result of increasing repression against the coca growers' movement. Whilst Bolivian politics had seen several political parties contesting on populist platforms during the past decades, MAS-IPSP and MIP differed from these parties through its strong connections to the peasant organizations. However, the fact that MIP had been accorded registration as a political party by the National Electoral Court (in spite of falling short of having the 10,000 members required for registration) angered MAS-IPSP followers. Both within MAS-IPSP and amongst political analysts the smooth registration of MIP was described as a move by the political establishment to divide the indigenous vote and to spoil the chances of a possible MAS-IPSP/MIP alliance. By this time IPSP had been denied registration by the National Electoral Court four times, citing minor details.
The period of 2000–2002 was characterized by a series of social struggles that contributed to the radicalization of the Bolivian polity; the Cochabamba Water War, Aymara uprisings in 2000 and 2001 and the coca growers' struggle in Chapare.
In January 2002, Morales was expelled from the parliament after being accused of masterminding violent confrontations between police and coca growers in Sacaba. The expulsion of Morales from the parliament contributed to the political popularity of MAS-IPSP.
Ahead of the 2002 national elections, MAS-IPSP sought to expand its influence outside its peasant base. Evo Morales stood as presidential candidate and Antonio Peredo as vice-presidential candidate. By launching Peredo for the vice-presidency, MAS-IPSP attempted to gain influence amongst the urban middle classes. MAS-IPSP also made an appeal for the supporters of the Marxist left groups to join the campaign and present themselves as MAS-IPSP candidates. Prominent MAS-IPSP leaders recruited for the 2002 election campaign included Gustavo Torrico, and Jorge Alvaro.
In their election campaign, MAS-IPSP championed 'national sovereignty', denouncing U.S. interventions in Bolivian affairs. The political elite and proponents of neoliberal policies were denounced as 'traitors' supported by the United States. Morales has credited ambassador Rocha for the success of MAS, stating that "[e]very statement [Rocha] made against us helped us to grow and awaken the conscience of the people." Anti-US sentiment was further exacerbated when the new ambassador, David Greenlee, made it clear that he would not approve of any president other than Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (Goni).
The electoral advance of MAS-IPSP was aided by the implosion of the political party Conscience of Fatherland (CONDEPA). CONDEPA was a populist party which was based in the urban poor, often Aymaras who had migrated to the urban centres of Bolivia. The party had lost much of its popular legitimacy as it was coopted by Hugo Banzer's government, and the party had suffered the death of its main leader just before the 2002 elections. In the polls CONDEPA lost all of their 22 parliamentary seats.
The fifth national congress of MAS-IPSP was held in Oruro 13–14 December 2003.
In government (2005–2025)
In the 2005 general election, Evo Morales was again the presidential candidate of MAS-IPSP. He won a clear majority with 53.7% of the valid presidential vote—the first since the restoration of democracy that a presidential candidate had won without the need for a runoff. MAS-IPSP obtained 43.5% of the valid uninominal vote, which gave it 72 out of 130 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 12 out of 27 seats in the Senate. In the 2005 prefect elections, MAS campaigned for all nine departmental prefectures (governorships), but only won three: Chuquisaca (43%), Oruro (41.0%), and Potosí (42.7%).
Since taking office, the MAS-IPSP government has emphasized modernization of the country, promoting industrialization, increased state intervention in the economy, social and cultural inclusion, and redistribution of revenue from natural resources through various social service programs. Two MAS-IPSP heavyweights, Santos Ramírez and Edmundo Novillo (since elected governor of Cochabamba in April 2010 local elections), became the president of the Senate and the House of Deputies respectively.
The 2006 elections to the Constituent Assembly further consolidated the position of MAS-IPSP as the dominant force in Bolivian politics.
In 2007 MAS-IPSP was able to register itself as MAS-IPSP at the CNE.
thumb|200px|right|MAS-IPSP partisans celebrate the 16th anniversary of the party's founding in [[Sacaba, Cochabamba.]]
In the 2010 regional elections, MAS-IPSP won the post of governor in six departements (La Paz, Oruro, Potosí, Pando, Chuquisaca and Cochabamba) and finished second in the remaining three (Santa Cruz, Tarija and Beni). In Chuquisaca MAS-IPSP had launched 29-year-old Estaban Urquizu as its candidate for governor. Urquizu won with 53.9% of the votes, becoming the youngest governor in Bolivian history. In La Paz Department MAS-IPSP dropped its candidate Félix Patzi shortly before the elections, after Patzi was arrested for drunk driving.
The election was also marked by candidatures of MAS-IPSP dissidents. MAS-IPSP co-founder Lino Villca had founded the Movement for Sovereignty (MPS), which contested the elections. Other former MAS-IPSP activists involved in founding the MPS include Óscar Chirinos, Miguel Machaca, and Rufo Calle.
In the municipal elections in 2015, it was the only party to contest leadership of all 339 municipalities. In all, the mayors of 227 municipalities belong to the party, as do 1,144 of the country's 2,022 municipal council members.
The 2020 general election had a record voter turnout of 88.4% and ended in a landslide win for MAS which took 55.1% of the votes.
There was a deep internal divisions within the party between the supporters of president Luis Arce and former president Evo Morales. In September 2024, clashes between pro-Arce and pro-Morales factions in La Paz ended with 40 people injured.
On November 26, 2024, Groover García was recognized as president of the MAS recognized by him (TSE), leaving Evo Morales out of the presidency of the MAS and without power within the MAS. In February 2025, Evo Morales presented his formal resignation from Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS). He was running for president in the August 17 elections with the (FPV).
In the August 2025 general election, MAS presidential candidate Eduardo del Castillo won just 3.16% of the vote, meaning the end of two decades of Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) dominance. Arce was expelled from the party soon after the election.
Ideology
Morales has defined socialism in terms of communitarianism, stating in a 2003 interview that in the "ayllu people live in community, with values such as solidarity and reciprocity'. Regarding the question of national identity, MAS-IPSP borrows discourse from the katarista tradition and from the indigenous peoples' movement in eastern Bolivia, criticizing the modern nation state as a failed construct of 'internal colonialism' and inherently racist. Thus the movement seeks to construct a plurinational state based on autonomies of the indigenous peoples. In the MAS-IPSP discourse 'nation' and 'people' are often equated, whilst the oligarchy is portrayed as anti-national. The seventh congress of MAS-IPSP, held in January 2009, approved a document titled "Communitarian socialism to liberate Bolivia from the colonial state", envisioning the path of a 'cultural and democratic revolution' in Bolivia.
In a 2005 programme MAS set out its main and national objective:
A 2006 development plan called for buen vivir (Living well) as an alternative to capitalist development, stating that
A later development plan from 2010 stated that:
According to Blade Nzimande in 2007, MAS-IPSP does not have an ideological centre, and the different constituent movements belong to slightly different trends of thought. He also argued that Marxists, social-democrats, and anarchists can be found within the MAS-IPSP fold. In the words of Álvaro García Linera, the political character of MAS-IPSP has evolved through the combination of "an eclectic indianism and the critical and self-critical traditions of the intellectual left-wing that began to Indianize Marxism from the 1980s and onwards". According to García Linera, a "flexible indianism" enabled MAS-IPSP to gather support from a variety of sectors. Bolivian writer and economist Roberto Laserna argues that there are three main factions within the party: the indigenistas, the old leftists, and the [[Left-wing populism|[left-wing] populists]]. García Linera once described MAS-IPSP as "centre-left", stating that the goal of the movement is the establishment of a form of "Andean capitalism" which Linera Which characterized as a stage in the transition to socialism in Bolivia. In the findings of Latinobarómetro surveys until 2002, a sample of 27 MAS voters identified themselves as 2.7 on a scale between 0 and 10 (in which 0 represented the far-left and 10 represented the far-right).
According to Marta Harnecker and Federico Fuentes, MAS-IPSP represents a "new indigenous nationalism" based on two sets of historical memories, that of the peasant movement (represented through CSUTCB) and that of the indigenous movement (represented through CIDOB), and combines elements of indigenismo, nationalism and "miners' Marxism".
The party has also been described by a number of observers as centre-left. Towards the 2020 general elections, the party, under the influence of candidate Luis Arce, was said to have adopted centre-left strategies, abandoning the party's historical radical strategies. Some time later the Arcista faction took the party's presidency and became the main faction of the party.
A 2021 statute noted that the MAS-IPSP is governed by the following principles: Anti-imperialism, Anti-capitalism, Anti-colonialism, Complementarity, Historical memory, Pluralism, Exercise of Plurinationality, Plurinational Identity, Internal Democracy, Internal Discipline, Equality and gender equity, Depatriarchalization, Unity, Solidarity, and Respect for natural leadership.
In its program for 2025-2030, MAS-IPSP sets out its position in these terms:
Organization
IPSP was founded as a 'political instrument', an organization distinct from the traditional political parties. Hervé do Alto defines the organization as both a political party and a federation of social movements at the same time. As such, MAS-IPSP tends to follow a bottom-up, decentralized structure, with regional and local branches having a large amount of input on party decisions.
Leadership
The National Leadership (Dirección Nacional, DN) of MAS-IPSP is composed of representatives of the constituent organizations affiliated with MAS-IPSP. It is more of a loosely coordinated body rather than a party leadership in the traditional sense. Notably MAS-IPSP has not been institutionally consolidated in the way the Workers' Party (PT) in Brazil has developed, which also emerged as a political vehicle of social movements.
Clause 42 of the Organic Bylaws of MAS-IPSP stipulated that candidates in national and local elections should be elected through direct vote at assemblies. The majority of the MAS-IPSP candidatures in the 1999 and 2002 elections were selected through this method. However some candidates in the 2002 and 2005 elections were directly appointed by Morales.
Member organizations
The founding member organizations of MAS-IPSP are CSUTCB, CSCB, and the Bartolina Sisa federation. The Bolivian Workers' Center (COB) and the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu (CONAMAQ) are not part of MAS-IPSP, but are supportive of the government.