Bolivia candidate vows to scrap China, Russia lithium offers
By Jos� Arturo C�rdenas and Gonzalo TORRICO
La Paz (AFP) Aug 25, 2025
Bolivian right-wing presidential hopeful Jorge Quiroga on Monday vowed to scrap billion-dollar lithium extraction offers struck by the outgoing authorities with Russia and China if elected chief.
“We do not acknowledge (outgoing President Luis) Arce’s contracts… Let’s cease them, they will not be accepted,” the US-educated Quiroga, who has vowed a serious shake-up in Bolivia’s alliances if elected president in October, advised AFP in an interview.
Quiroga got here second within the first spherical of Bolivia’s August 17 presidential election with 26.7 %, behind center-right senator Rodrigo Paz on 32 %.
The Motion In the direction of Socialism (MAS), in energy since 2006, suffered a historic rout, with voters punishing the celebration based by iconic ex-president Evo Morales over a deep financial disaster.
Quiroga and Paz now face a second-round duel for the presidency on October 19.
The destiny of Bolivia’s lithium deposits — among the many world’s largest of the metallic utilized in smartphone and electrical automobile batteries — is a scorching subject within the marketing campaign.
The so-called Lithium Triangle, spanning components of Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, is residence to 60 % of the world’s lithium reserves, in accordance with the US Geological Survey.
However within the case of Bolivia, almost all of it’s nonetheless trapped underground, at an altitude of three,600 meters (12,000 toes) within the huge Salar de Uyuni salt flat, one of many nation’s high vacationer points of interest.
In 2023 and 2024 Arce’s authorities signed offers with Russia’s Uranium One and China’s CBC, a subsidiary of battery producer CATL, to extract lithium from the salt pan.
Value a mixed $2 billion, the offers have been supposed to assist Bolivia catch up within the race to mine the mineral.
However they have been blocked in Congress by infighting within the ruling celebration.
Indigenous teams in the meantime went to courtroom to have them scrapped on environmental grounds.
Quiroga claimed Uranium One and CATL have been chosen “behind the again” of native authorities and mentioned he would suggest a brand new regulation on mineral deposits that precluded “favoritism.”
– From fuel to lithium –
Bolivia loved over a decade of sturdy development beneath Morales (2006-2019), who nationalized the fuel sector and ploughed the proceeds into anti-poverty packages.
However underinvestment in exploration precipitated fuel revenues to implode, eroding the federal government’s overseas foreign money reserves and resulting in acute shortages of imported gasoline, widely-used {dollars} and different fundamentals.
Inflation rose to 24.8 % year-on-year in July, its highest stage since a minimum of 2008, inflicting voters to abandon the left in droves.
Quiroga, who served briefly as president within the early 2000s, has pledged a radical overhaul of Bolivia’s big-state financial mannequin if elected, together with steep spending cuts.
His challenger Paz, who has campaigned as a average, on Monday dominated out strict austerity measures to rescue the nation from the brink of chapter.
“There might be a stabilization course of, we’re not calling it an adjustment,” the 57-year-old senator advised AFP.
He nonetheless revealed he would reduce $1.2 billion in annual gasoline subsidies — a serious drain on the general public purse — and save one other $1.3 billion in unspecified “superfluous spending.”
Paz added that he would create tax incentives to get Bolivians to financial institution any {dollars} hidden beneath their mattress however wouldn’t initially search a global bailout, as proposed by Quiroga.
“Folks perceive that we have now to get our home so as first,” mentioned Paz, whose father Jaime Paz Zamora led Bolivia from 1989 to 1993.
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