Who stands to gain most from the UN’s critical minerals push in Africa?

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By Brian Kenety October 6, 2026

Chinese companies already operating or building processing plants in Zimbabwe, Guinea and Nigeria are best placed to benefit from a new United Nations programme to help five African states keep more of their mineral wealth at home.

On September 23, the UN chose Guinea, Madagascar, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe, along with Indonesia, for its Country Support Mechanism on Critical Energy Transition Minerals. The programme names no companies and carries no announced funding. So any corporate gain depends on whether its policy and regulatory advice makes local processing easier to finance and operate.

Chinese groups start with a clear advantage because they can often combine mine finance, construction, processing technology and long-term offtake in a single investment package. A programme that offers advice rather than capital does not by itself change that.

The picture is less clear for the African states themselves, and for the domestic and non-Chinese companies operating there.

What the UN is offering

The UN mechanism is intended to help mineral-rich developing countries move beyond raw-material exports into processing, manufacturing and other higher-value activities.

Announced by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, it will provide policy advice, legal and regulatory expertise, environmental and social safeguards, and support for building domestic mineral value chains. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Development Coordination Office are leading it.

It grows out of the Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals, established in 2024, and a task force launched in December 2025 that coordinates UN work across value addition, traceability, mining legacies, artisanal mining and circularity.

Selwin Hart, Guterres’ special adviser and assistant secretary-general for climate action, warned that without such support, resource-rich countries risk remaining “mere exporters of raw materials, while others benefit enormously from their mineral wealth”.

Why processing is the prize

The strategic concern increasingly lies in processing rather than in where ores are mined. The International Energy Agency said in its 2026 outlook that China is the dominant refiner for most key energy minerals and accounts for more than 90% of global refined supply of gallium, graphite, manganese and magnet rare earths. China’s share of global copper-smelting capacity has also risen from about 15% in 2005 to around 50% in 2025.

Africa captures only a small share of the value generated from the minerals it produces. The IEA estimates that the continent supplies around 75% of the world’s manganese, 70% of its cobalt and nearly 20% of its copper, yet captures less than 1% of the value generated by manufacturing clean-energy technologies and components. Moving downstream requires more than access to ore: processors need reliable electricity, transport infrastructure, finance, technical skills and customers.

What counts as a critical mineral varies by jurisdiction. The EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act identifies 34 critical raw materials, 17 of them classed as strategic for green and digital technologies, defence and aerospace, while the United States’ 2025 list contains 60 critical minerals; both include materials central to the mining sectors of the five African countries in the programme, including aluminium, copper, cobalt, lithium, graphite, nickel, manganese and rare earths.

See IntelliNews: China’s grip on Africa’s critical minerals faces growing pushback from the continent's leaders, while the US and EU compete for access

See IntelliNews: Africa’s push for local mineral processing reshapes mining investment

Zimbabwe: one plant built, others racing the ban

Zimbabwe has taken one of the most interventionist approaches to forcing the shift downstream. It suspended lithium concentrate exports in February, resumed them in April under quotas and a 10% export tax, and plans a full ban from January 1, 2027.

Miners are moving towards deeper local processing, although Benchmark Mineral Intelligence has warned that slow construction of planned lithium sulphate plants could make the timetable difficult to meet.

Zimbabwe exported 1.128mn tonnes of spodumene concentrate to China in 2025, about 15% of China’s lithium concentrate imports, Reuters reported, and Chinese companies dominate the sector.

Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt (SSE: 603799; SIX: HUAYO) is furthest ahead, having built a $400mn plant to turn concentrate into lithium sulphate. Sinomine (SZSE: 002738) and Yahua (SZSE: 002497) have announced similar investments, while Chengxin Lithium Group (SZSE: 002240) and Tsingshan Holding Group are also active, Miningmx reported, citing Reuters.

The Lithium Producers Association of Zimbabwe asked the government for a grace period, citing limited plant readiness. However, Mines Minister Polite Kambamura rejected the request in July, saying the government was “still sticking with January 1”. Companies able to convert concentrate into permitted processed products will therefore be better positioned to continue exporting after the concentrate ban takes effect.

Zimbabwe already offers an early indication of the sums involved. Huayou’s Arcadia operation made the country’s first commercial shipment of lithium sulphate in April, moving beyond spodumene concentrate into an intermediate battery chemical. The Lithium Producers Association of Zimbabwe said in August that industry turnover had averaged about $580mn annually in 2023-2025 after raw-ore exports generated roughly $60mn in 2022, and projected turnover of about $1bn in 2026 following the first lithium-sulphate exports. The figures are industry estimates rather than audited sector data, and they also reflect changes in volumes and prices.

See IntelliNews: Zimbabwe eyes $1bn turnover from lithium sulphate exports amid beneficiation drive

Guinea: three Chinese refinery projects

Guinea faces the same value-capture problem at a different stage of the chain. The country was the world’s largest bauxite producer in 2024, accounting for an estimated 33.2% of global output, according to the US Geological Survey. Still, far less value is retained locally through alumina refining. Chinese state-controlled aluminium producer Aluminum Corporation of China Limited, or Chalco (SSE: 601600; HKEX: 2600), began building a roughly $1bn alumina refinery at Boffa on June 13, with a planned capacity of 1.2mn tonnes a year.

Chalco’s plant is one of three new Chinese-backed refinery projects of similar scale. State Power Investment Corporation and Winning Consortium Alumina Guinea, both Chinese, have each announced refineries of 1.2mn tonnes a year, with each of the three investments put at about $1bn, Ecofin Agency reported.

Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG), in which the state holds 49% alongside partners including Alcoa (NYSE: AA; ASX: AAI) and Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO; LSE: RIO; NYSE: RIO), aims to start building its own refinery by the end of 2026. Guinea’s mines ministry said on September 21 that it had discussed possible involvement in that project with the US International Development Finance Corporation and the US Export-Import Bank. The country’s only operating refinery, Friguia, is run by Russia’s Rusal (HKEX: 486; MOEX: RUAL).

Nigeria: Chinese capital, US framework

Nigeria is also trying to push more mineral processing onshore. On July 2 it commissioned the $250mn Diamond New Energy lithium mining and processing plant in Nasarawa State, with capacity to process 6,000 tonnes of lithium ore a day. The project was developed by Chinese investors in partnership with the state government, Jiuling Lithium and Canmax Technologies (SZSE: 300390).

Chinese capital dominates the rest of the sector too. An earlier plant in Lafia, also in Nasarawa State, is operated by Avatar New Energy Materials and has a capacity of 4,000 tonnes a day. Reuters reported in 2025 that Chinese firms had provided more than 80% of the funding for four new lithium processing plants in Nigeria.

Nigeria has also turned to the United States, signing a critical-minerals framework in New York in September covering exploration, mining, processing, infrastructure and technical capacity, although details of projects and financing have not been made public.

See IntelliNews: Nigeria opens Chinese-built $250mn lithium plant, targets leading role in battery supply chain

Zambia: smelting capacity is the constraint

Zambia shows how limited smelting capacity can undercut a beneficiation policy. The government wants to move further down the copper value chain but suspended a 10% export duty on copper concentrates to help clear stockpiles while major smelters underwent extended maintenance.

The waiver covered 271,742 tonnes of concentrate. The suspension expired on September 30 without a replacement measure being announced, meaning the standard duty reverted, renewing the tension between domestic beneficiation goals and available smelting capacity.

The waiver was shared among six producers. Mopani Copper Mines, owned by Abu Dhabi-based International Resources Holding and state investment vehicle ZCCM Investments Holdings (LuSE: ZCCM-IH; Euronext Paris: MLZAM; LSE: ZCC), held the largest duty-free quota at 100,000 tonnes, followed by the Lumwana mine of Barrick Mining (NYSE: B; TSX: ABX) at 56,986 tonnes. First Quantum Minerals (TSX: FM) and Chinese-owned Nkana Mining and Minerals Processing each held about 43,000 tonnes, while Lubambe Copper Mine, 70% owned by China’s JCHX Mining (SSE: 603979), and Vedanta’s Konkola Copper Mines held 15,000 tonnes and 12,541 tonnes respectively.

The allocations show which producers were eligible for the waiver, not how exposed each is to the duty. Mopani declined to use its quota and intends to process all available concentrate through its own smelter, Bloomberg reported in June. Producers able to process more of their concentrate domestically are generally less exposed to the duty’s return.

See IntelliNews: Zambia extends copper concentrate export-duty waiver, prioritising output over beneficiation amid smelter constraints

Madagascar: processing planned offshore

Madagascar illustrates perhaps the clearest gap between mineral endowment and domestic downstream processing. It has important graphite, nickel and cobalt resources but remains concentrated in upstream activity, and it imposes no major local-processing requirement on graphite producers, Ecofin Agency reported.

The main examples are in graphite and mineral sands. Canada’s NextSource Materials (TSX: NEXT; OTCQB: NSRCF), which operates the Molo graphite mine, has approved a battery-anode plant in Abu Dhabi. Energy Fuels (NYSE American: UUUU; TSX: EFR) is developing the Vara Mada mineral sands and rare-earths project, formerly known as Toliara, and plans to ship its monazite to its White Mesa mill in Utah for processing.

The Ambatovy nickel and cobalt operation is one of the few examples of significant local processing. It has been owned since May by Ambatovy Mineral Resources Investment Holding Company, a consortium led by Essenwood Partners with Zungu Investments that took over Sumitomo Corporation’s stake, and Korea Mine Rehabilitation and Mineral Resources Corporation.

Among other operators, Rio Tinto holds 80% of the QMM mineral sands mine, and Total Graphite (LSE: TGR; OTCQX: TGRHF), formerly Tirupati Graphite, owns the Vatomina and Sahamamy graphite projects in the Toamasina region, of which Vatomina has been paused since July for an optimisation programme and Sahamamy is on care and maintenance.

A UNCTAD assessment published in June identified 124 actionable products across eight sectors, most of them outside mining, that could create about 19,700 direct and indirect jobs.

See IntelliNews: How graphite could make Madagascar prosperous

Selection and reaction

Hart told Bloomberg that 15 countries had been considered, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world’s largest cobalt producer. Work already under way in the countries not selected would continue, he said. His office later said the six were selected using five criteria: government commitment; mineral endowment and development potential; UN system readiness; prospects for resource mobilisation; and demonstration and replicability value.

Governments in the first cohort welcomed the move. Zambia’s Foreign Minister Mulambo Haimbe said the country’s ambition was not simply to produce more copper but to create greater value at home through investment, value addition, industrialisation and jobs. Zimbabwe’s Foreign Minister Amon Murwira said the country, as one of the world’s leading lithium producers, recognised that critical minerals were central to the global energy transition.

UNDP Administrator Alexander de Croo said critical minerals could help countries diversify and transform their economies if value creation, environmental protection and good governance were pursued together. UN Environment Programme Executive Director Inger Andersen said the agency would help countries protect environmental integrity and advance circularity.

The limits: finance and governance

Financing remains a central constraint. Building refineries, processing plants and the supporting power and transport infrastructure needed to move further down mineral value chains will require capital on a scale beyond policy and regulatory assistance alone.

Independent governance experts have welcomed the initiative but cautioned that value addition will require more than technical assistance. Suneeta Kaimal, president and chief executive of the Natural Resource Governance Institute, said participating countries would need stronger negotiating positions, robust governance and meaningful participation by civil society and affected communities to avoid repeating the inequities of earlier mineral booms.

Publish What You Pay Indonesia, a transparency campaign group based in the cohort’s only non-African member, raised a more specific concern about implementation. National coordinator Aryanto Nugroho said in a September 25 statement that it must be clear who will have a seat at the table before country-level work plans are drawn up, because communities around mines and smelters bear the greatest social and ecological costs. The UN announcement did not mention the role of civil society and Indigenous peoples, or set out a funding scheme or implementation timeline, Tempo reported.

For the companies involved, the programme’s value will be measured by whether processing plants become easier to finance, power and supply. Until then, the advantage lies with those already building or operating capacity: Chinese groups in Guinea, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, and producers with domestic smelting capacity such as Mopani in Zambia. Western-backed projects include CBG’s proposed Guinean refinery, which is still seeking finance, and Madagascar ventures whose planned downstream processing is offshore. The states’ own direct stakes include Guinea’s 49% of CBG and the Zambian state investment vehicle’s share of Mopani.

 

DRC mining growth exposes power, rail and processing bottlenecks

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By Jason Mitchell September 18, 2026

The Democratic Republic of Congo sits on mineral resources whose untapped value has been widely estimated at around $24 trillion, although the frequently cited valuation is based on older estimates and has surely grown. The DRC’s ability to exploit that wealth increasingly depends on whether infrastructure investment can keep pace with mining growth.

The country is already the world’s second-largest copper producer after Chile and by far the largest source of cobalt, while new investment is opening up lithium and zinc resources alongside established gold, tin and tantalum production.

The scale of the expansion has been rapid. The US Geological Survey estimates that the DRC produced 3.2mn tonnes of mined copper in 2025 and holds reserves of around 80mn tonnes. Cobalt output reached around 230,000 tonnes in 2025, equivalent to about 73% of global mine production. The country holds an estimated 6mn tonnes, or half of the world’s cobalt reserves.

Mining is already driving the wider economy. Mining output grew by 10.1% in 2025, helping real GDP expand by an estimated 5.5%, according to the World Bank. Growth is forecast to average 5.1% between 2026 and 2028, with the pace of mining expansion expected to moderate as some major projects mature.

Infrastructure is becoming the main constraint. The country has vast hydropower resources, but electricity supply remains unreliable, while poor roads and railways increase the cost of developing and operating mines.

China already has a powerful position in the country. Growing US and European investment is increasing competition over infrastructure and mineral supply chains, with the Lobito Corridor emerging as a major focus.

China dominates mining investment

Chinese investment has been central to the rapid expansion of the mining industry, spanning major copper and cobalt operations, processing capacity, supporting infrastructure and, increasingly, lithium.

CMOC (SSE: 603993; HKEX: 3993), the Chinese mining group, shows the scale of that investment. It owns 80% of Tenke Fungurume and 71.25% of Kisanfu, two of the largest copper-cobalt operations in the country. Its Congolese mines produced 741,100 tonnes of copper and 117,500 tonnes of cobalt in 2025. Tenke Fungurume has an annual copper production capacity of more than 450,000 tonnes, while Kisanfu can produce more than 200,000 tonnes.

Chinese investment is also significant at the Kamoa-Kakula copper mining complex. Zijin Mining (SSE: 601899; HKEX: 2899) owns 39.6%, alongside Canadian mining company Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN; OTCQX: IVPAF) with 39.6%, the Congolese government with 20% and Crystal River Global with 0.8%. Kamoa-Kakula produced around 389,000 tonnes of copper in 2025.

Zijin is also developing the Manono lithium project with Congolese state interests, extending its presence beyond the Copperbelt.

China’s dominance extends further down the value chain. The DRC dominates global cobalt mining, yet China accounts for around 75-80% of global cobalt processing. Copper is different, with substantially more refining already taking place domestically.

Western companies remain important. Glencore (LSE: GLEN; JSE: GLN), the Switzerland-based commodities and mining group, produced a combined 247,800 tonnes of copper at KCC and Mutanda in 2025, 10% more than a year earlier, alongside 33,500 tonnes of cobalt. Production strengthened during the second half as higher-grade ore and improved recoveries lifted output.

Competition between the US and China goes well beyond ownership of individual mines. China has established mining and processing assets, strong commercial ties and is a major buyer of Congolese minerals. The US and its partners are responding by financing infrastructure and developing alternative supply chains. The government hopes this competition will bring the investment needed to support further mining growth.

Gaylor Montmasson-Clair, co-founder and director of Southern Transitions, said in June that intensifying competition among China, the US and Europe for copper supplies was strengthening the negotiating position of African producers. He argued that countries such as the DRC and Zambia had an opportunity to use that leverage to capture more processing and manufacturing activity rather than remaining primarily suppliers of raw materials.

Power deficit threatens further growth

Power is one of the biggest constraints. The DRC has enormous hydroelectric potential, yet an unreliable grid and inadequate transmission infrastructure mean some of its largest mines have had to secure much of their own electricity supply.

Matt Tilleard, chief executive of CrossBoundary Energy, estimates that the DRC mining sector faces a power deficit of around 1 GW, underscoring the scale of additional generation required as copper and other mineral production expands.

The Inga site alone has estimated hydroelectric potential of around 42,000 MW, although successive expansion plans have faced repeated delays.

Kamoa-Kakula demonstrates the scale of the challenge. Ivanhoe helped finance the refurbishment of Turbine 5 at the Inga II hydroelectric plant, restoring 178 MW of generating capacity. Kamoa initially secured an additional 50 MW, with its allocation expected to rise towards 150 MW as transmission upgrades are completed. These include improvements to substations at Inga and Kolwezi designed to increase power delivery and grid stability.

A 60 MW uninterruptible power supply has also been installed to protect Kamoa’s smelter from voltage fluctuations. Separately, Ivanhoe said in August that commissioning was under way on two hybrid solar-and-battery facilities comprising 433 MWp of photovoltaic capacity and 1,107 MWh of storage, designed to provide 60 MW of continuous baseload power. The 233 MWp CrossBoundary Energy component was reported commissioned in September.

The pressure will increase as production and processing expand. Ivanhoe expects Kamoa-Kakula’s total power requirement to rise from 208 MW at the end of 2025 to 347 MW by the end of 2028.

Electricity problems extend beyond copper. Grid reliability is an explicit risk at Kipushi, the major zinc operation near the Zambian border, where backup generation capacity has been increased to around 20 MW. The mine nevertheless produced a record 70,177 tonnes of zinc in concentrate in the second quarter of 2026, equivalent to an annualised rate of around 280,000 tonnes, against full-year guidance of 240,000-290,000 tonnes.

Kibali, one of Africa’s largest gold mines, has no national grid connection. Barrick Mining (NYSE: B; TSX: ABX), the Canadian gold and copper producer that operates the mine, developed three hydropower stations with a combined capacity of around 43 MW. A 16 MW solar plant and battery storage system were commissioned in 2025, raising renewable energy to 85% of Kibali’s power mix and allowing the operation to run entirely on renewable electricity for six months of the year.

Processing push raises infrastructure demand

Greater domestic processing is becoming another source of infrastructure demand. The 2018 Mining Code requires mineral production to be processed or transformed domestically, subject to exemptions. More recent measures have tightened government control over how copper and cobalt leave the country.

A joint ministerial order dated June 29, 2026 prohibited exports of copper and cobalt concentrates, although strategic exemptions can be granted for up to one year.

The government’s cobalt policy has become even more interventionist. A temporary export ban introduced in February 2025 followed a sharp fall in cobalt prices amid global oversupply. It was replaced by a quota system allowing up to 96,600 tonnes of contained cobalt annually in 2026 and 2027, including 9,600 tonnes reserved for national strategic purposes. The measures are intended to restrict supply and support prices while encouraging greater value addition.

Copper is already further along this path. Refined copper production reached an estimated 2.8mn tonnes in 2025, according to the US Geological Survey. Kamoa-Kakula has added a 500,000-tonne-a-year direct-to-blister copper smelter, the largest in Africa, which produced its first anodes in December 2025. The facility also produces sulphuric acid for sale to other Copperbelt mines.

Cobalt presents a different picture. The DRC accounts for roughly three-quarters of global mine production, while China handles almost 80% of global processing. Much of the material leaves as cobalt hydroxide and other intermediate products before undergoing further processing abroad.

Capturing more of that value domestically will require dependable electricity, water and transport links for smelters, refineries and other processing plants.

Lobito opens an Atlantic export route

The Lobito Corridor has meanwhile moved from a proposed alternative export route to an operating railway carrying Congolese minerals to the Atlantic. In early 2026, Kamoa-Kakula shipped its first 99.7%-pure copper anodes by rail to the Port of Lobito in Angola for onward shipment to Europe. The rail journey averages around seven days, compared with more than three weeks by truck to Durban or Dar es Salaam.

Investment is now focused on turning those initial shipments into a much larger regional freight system. The US International Development Finance Corporation agreed a $553mn loan in December 2025, alongside $200mn from the Development Bank of Southern Africa. The $753mn package supports rehabilitation of Angola’s roughly 1,300-km railway and the Lobito mineral terminal.

DFC expects the upgrades to increase capacity from about 400,000 tonnes to 4.6mn tonnes a year and reduce critical-mineral transport costs by as much as 30%.

The larger expansion extends beyond Angola. Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), the pan-African infrastructure investor leading development of the wider corridor, plans 315 km of new railway in the DRC and 515 km in Zambia, connecting mining regions to the existing Benguela line.

AFC is preparing to raise $3bn-$5bn, with the financing round due to start in the third quarter of 2026 and financial close targeted for the fourth quarter of 2027. Completion is planned for 2030, although that timetable remains dependent on financing, construction and coordination across the three countries. At least ten African and international lenders are already in discussions.

The gap between current traffic and those ambitions remains large. Lobito Atlantic Railway, the private rail concessionaire, carried close to 200,000 tonnes of international cargo in 2025, only a fraction of planned future capacity. Flooding in Angola disrupted traffic in 2026, highlighting the need for greater resilience as volumes increase.

The Congolese section has also moved forward. In August, the DRC awarded Mota-Engil (Euronext Lisbon: EGL) a 30-year concession covering the roughly 1,004-km Dilolo-Sakania railway through Kolwezi, Tenke and Lubumbashi. The agreement covers financing, rehabilitation, modernisation, operation and maintenance of the line. Mota-Engil has put investment over the concession period at as much as $1.8bn.

The Congolese government wants Lobito to develop beyond a mineral export railway, using improved transport and power links to support local processing, industry and trade along the corridor.

US-China competition reshapes transport routes

The geopolitical contest is also playing out in transport. Lobito is central to Washington’s attempt to build critical-mineral supply chains less dependent on China. Beijing is backing a $1.4bn rehabilitation of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway, strengthening another route towards the Indian Ocean.

In practice, Western- and Chinese-backed infrastructure will form part of the same regional transport network. Chinese-backed mines can use Lobito when it offers competitive costs and transit times, while minerals will continue moving east and south through alternative corridors.

For miners, several reliable routes would improve capacity, resilience and bargaining power. The test for the DRC is whether geopolitical competition produces functioning cross-border infrastructure rather than another cycle of financing commitments and feasibility studies.

Manono tests infrastructure beyond the Copperbelt

The infrastructure challenge becomes more difficult as mining expands beyond the established Copperbelt. Manono in Tanganyika province provides an early test. Zijin Mining’s Manono Lithium joint venture started production at its processing plant in May 2026, a month ahead of schedule. Trial exports began in June, followed by the first officially certified lithium shipment in July.

Zijin is targeting 30,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent in 2026, while the project’s eventual design capacity is about 1mn tonnes of spodumene concentrate a year from 5mn tonnes of ore.

Bringing Manono into production has required substantial investment beyond the mine itself. The nearby Mpiana-Mwanga hydropower station has been rehabilitated by Katamba Mining at a cost of more than $80mn, restoring installed capacity to around 40 MW. The first turbine came online in late 2024, with further capacity increases planned. Zijin has also invested in roads, bridges and supporting infrastructure.

Initial lithium exports are being trucked roughly 440 km to Kalemie on Lake Tanganyika before continuing through Tanzania towards China, highlighting the logistical complexity of developing a major mineral resource far from established export corridors.

Further processing is planned, with a smelter and other downstream facilities expected to begin operating by the end of 2026. However, the project remains subject to a legal dispute with AVZ Minerals, the Australian mining company whose previous licence was revoked. KoBold Metals, the US-backed mineral exploration company holding an adjoining Manono licence, has said it will not begin development until related ownership disputes are resolved.

Transport infrastructure will become increasingly important if new mining regions emerge. The road network extends for more than 150,000 km, but only a small proportion is paved, while the roughly 5,000-km rail network is fragmented and largely requires rehabilitation.

Conditions are tougher still in the east. Tin, tantalum and other minerals there move through more fragmented, often artisanal supply chains that face the same transport and infrastructure deficits, compounded by insecurity.

Aviation also plays an important role in connecting remote mining centres given the poor condition of much of the road network. Upgrades are under way or planned at Kolwezi, Lubumbashi and Kalemie, while Kolwezi is being developed towards international-airport status.

Manono illustrates how the economics of future discoveries will depend on more than ore grades. New mineral provinces will require power, roads, aviation links and viable routes to export markets, adding substantially to development costs.

The scale of the opportunity nevertheless remains exceptional. Copper production has already risen to 3.2mn tonnes a year. Cobalt, lithium and zinc provide additional growth.

So far, major miners have often solved infrastructure problems themselves. Kamoa-Kakula has invested in power and processing, Kibali operates its own energy system, and Zijin has helped develop power and transport infrastructure around Manono. That model works for large, high-margin deposits but is harder to replicate across a broader mining industry.

Investment now under way could begin to change that. Lobito is targeting freight capacity of 4.6mn tonnes a year, its wider rail expansion is planned for completion by 2030, and new transmission, renewable-power and processing projects are being developed alongside mine expansion. China is simultaneously investing in alternative transport infrastructure, including the $1.4bn TAZARA rehabilitation.

Competition between China, the US and other investors could accelerate that build-out. By 2030, projects such as Lobito will show whether enough power, rail and processing capacity has been added to keep pace with mining growth. The mineral resources and investor interest are already there; infrastructure will determine how much of that opportunity can be realised.

 

ERG’s Congo cobalt site sees return of army-backed intruders

Bloomberg News | September 9, 2026 |

More than three-quarters of the world’s cobalt comes from Congo. (Image courtesy of The Impact Facility.)

Intruders backed by soldiers are again operating illegally at one of the world’s biggest sources of cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The recurrence of the incursion at the project belonging to a subsidiary of Eurasian Resources Group, which was first reported by Bloomberg in May, represents a challenge to the authority of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi. He ordered ministers in July to “definitively end all forms of illegal militarization of mining sites,” saying the issue “fosters negative perceptions of the governance of our natural resources.”

In the previous intrusion, a local company protected by Congolese soldiers had taken over a key section of a major copper-cobalt concession held by ERG’s Metalkol unit. An intervention by the armed forces subsequently cleared them out and seized their equipment.

A new “illegal occupation” in the same part of Metalkol’s permit near the city of Kolwezi began on Aug. 21 and is ongoing, ERG’s Africa division said by email. The incursion is being carried out by “armed men in uniform and groups of miners operating without authorization.”

The “government has been informed of the situation,” said the General Inspectorate of Mines, which is part of Congo’s Mines Ministry. “Appropriate measures are being implemented to ensure a lasting solution to this recurring issue,” a spokesperson said.

Congo’s National Defense & Veterans Ministry and Interior Ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment. Nor did a spokesperson for the subnational government in Lualaba province, where Metalkol is located.

The Central African country has some of the world’s richest deposits of copper, cobalt, tin, tantalum, gold, lithium and zinc. Cobalt has rallied sharply since early last year after Congo — the world’s dominant supplier of the battery metal — imposed export restrictions. 

Despite a recent decline, prices of cobalt hydroxide, the main product shipped from the African country, remain more than three times higher than when the curbs were introduced. Copper has been trading at an all-time high this week. 

So-called artisanal miners — sometimes supported by soldiers — often operate without permission, including on licenses belonging to international investors. The Mines Ministry is overseeing efforts to create zones where they are allowed to work.

Metalkol has the rights to reprocess more than 100 million tons of historic mine waste known as tailings and has become one of the top suppliers of cobalt. Only projects owned by CMOC Group Ltd. and Glencore Plc export more of the battery metal. The ERG unit is also a major producer of copper which is mined alongside cobalt in Congo.

The extraction of ore during the first occupation at Metalkol, which started in February and accelerated in April, was so organized that the activity threatened the venture’s commercial future, ERG previously said.

This time, the “theft of tailings” is also being “conducted on an industrial scale” by excavators and trucks operating around the clock, ERG said, estimating that around 700 tons of material is leaving the concession each day destined for nearby Chinese-owned plants. “Metalkol is unable to access the occupied area” due to the military presence, ERG said.

The earlier intrusion was carried out by a firm named Societe Cooperative Miniere Hosanna which claimed it had been authorized by the government, including the Interior Ministry, to clean up alleged pollution in the riverbed that contains most of Metalkol’s remaining reserves. Interior Minister Jacquemain Shabani previously told Bloomberg his ministry hadn’t granted permission to Hosanna.

ERG didn’t mention Hosanna in its statement about the latest events.

Last month, Mines Minister Louis Watum withdrew Hosanna’s approval to operate as a mining cooperative and issued Metalkol a 45-day notice to take “urgent measures” to clean up the river in its concession, according to letters seen by Bloomberg.

Metalkol is “working constructively” with the ministry’s environmental protection department to review relevant information and determine appropriate action, ERG said. The cooperation is taking place “without prejudice to the company’s position regarding the origin, cause or attribution of the environmental situation under review.”

These incursions “are occurring despite the highest instructions” of Congo’s president, ERG said.

(By William Clowes)

Sahel Gold Mines Fuel Terror Groups



By Africa Defense Forum

Key Takeaways:

Sahel jihadist groups JNIM and ISSP rarely storm the pits themselves. ACLED’s Héni Nsaibia: they take nearby towns and roads in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, then tax or extort miners and traders—often in gold that can be stored and laundered. Raids have found large gold stocks in JNIM bases.

Burkina Faso is the center of the violence: 75% of mining-related attacks in an ACLED look at 44 AES-country sites; most happen within 10 km of a mine. Inata, first hit in 2018, was shut by the junta in 2024 and, as of June, is described as under JNIM. Liptako-Gourma (Essakane, Samira) is a JNIM–ISSP contest zone; Kayes (Mali–Senegal) and the Burkina–Ghana border feed the same economy.

The risk is moving south. Nsaibia warns JNIM’s push toward Senegal, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, and Ghana—and both groups’ footprint in northwest and north-central Nigeria—could export the same pattern. Mines, he argues, now mark who controls people, routes, and money, not just ore.

Sahel terrorists are targeting gold mines and surrounding communities in search of revenue, recruits and weaponry such as explosives. In some cases, the terrorists have built bases nearby.

Rather than attack mines directly, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP) have staked their claims to nearby communities in different parts of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, along with the roads that connect mining areas to each other and to the outside world.

The groups target industrial and artisanal mining areas.

“As militant groups expand into new areas, they rarely focus on mines alone,” Héni Nsaibia, West African senior analyst for the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project wrote recently. “Instead, they interact with the miners, traders, transport routes, and surrounding communities that sustain mining activity and depend on it for their livelihoods.”

The goal, ultimately, is to exert control over the communities, their resources and the support infrastructure they provide, according to Nsaibia.

Burkina Faso has become the focal point for most mining-related violence, with 75% of all violent events happening within its borders. ACLED examined 44 mining sites across the three countries in the Alliance of Sahelian States (AES). It found that most terrorism happens within 10 kilometers of mines, not within the mines themselves.

Burkina Faso’s northern Inata mine, near the border with Mali, became the first mine terrorists targeted in 2018. The ruling junta closed the mine in 2024. As of June, the mine and the surrounding region are under JNIM’s control, according to ACLED.

“The way JNIM and ISSP are extracting value from the mining sector is indirect. People have to do the mining first,” Lucia Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo, director of the West Africa Observatory at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, said during a recent International Land Coalition (ILC) webinar.


JNIM and ISSP then extract payments, either as taxes or extortion, from miners and other community members, often in gold, which can be stored and laundered later to make quick cash.

“We’ve seen through raids on bases, particularly of JNIM, that groups can sometimes have really quite significant volumes of gold in these bases,” Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo said.

Many mining communities lie along border regions, such as Mali’s western Kayes region with Senegal, where 80% of its gold is mined. Burkina Faso’s southern boundary with Ghana also has become a source of revenue for JNIM as Ghanaian miners send their gold into Burkina Faso for processing, according to Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo.

The Liptako-Gourma region, where Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger meet, has long been a hot spot for competition between JNIM and ISSP. It’s also home to Burkina Faso’s largest gold mine, Essakane. Some of Niger’s most important gold mines, including the Samira mine, lie just across the border.

As JNIM and ISSP seek to expand their regional footprint , mining-related violence is likely to expand beyond AES countries, according to Nsaibia.

“JNIM’s expansion toward the borders with Senegal, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, and Ghana raises the risk that patterns already observed in the central Sahel will spread farther south to coastal West Africa,” Nsaibia wrote in a report for ACLED and the ILC.

Mining communities in northwest and north-central Nigeria also are likely targets for JNIM and ISSP, both of which already have a footprint in those regions, he added.

“Mining areas are now more than just sites of resource extraction,” Nsaibia wrote. “They increasingly serve as indicators of broader conflict dynamics, showing how governments assert control over mineral resources, and how localized violence can spread and disrupt vital economic activities.”


About Africa Defense Forum
The Africa Defense Forum (ADF) magazine is a security affairs journal that focuses on all issues affecting peace, stability, and good governance in Africa. ADF is published by the U.S. Africa Command.

The irresistible rise and fall of Evo Morales

By Pablo Stefanoni

Published 27 August, 2026

First published at The Ideas Letter.

Rodrigo Paz Pereira’s election to the presidency of Bolivia in October 2025 ended a long political era. Evo Morales’s Movement for Socialism (MAS) had held power for almost two decades, unbeatable both in the streets and at the ballot box. This time it didn’t just lose the election. It ceased to exist as a political force. The new government’s slogan, “capitalism for everyone,” signaled a dramatic break from the MAS’s state-centric discourse. And Paz’s choice of ministers made it clear that the change runs deeper: his cabinet is noticeably whiter, reflecting the decline of indigenous representation that had characterized the Plurinational State under the MAS.

Bolivia’s new era has also produced a powerful image: the exile of Morales in the Chapare, the subtropical region of the Cochabamba Department known for its coca leaf crops. Coca-growing peasant unions, which function like militias, are protecting the former president from arrest stemming from several ongoing judicial proceedings — including one involving the alleged abuse of a minor, a partner said to be underage when the relationship began. The kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela has fueled fear among Evistas that the “gringos,” who have regained influence in the country, might collaborate in his detention should Paz find it convenient. In La Paz, rumor has it that such support has already been requested but that, for the moment, the Americans have shown no interest.

The man who was once one of Latin America’s most iconic presidents, wielding virtually unchallenged power from 2006 to 2019, can no longer move freely around the country today for fear of being jailed. He divides his time between politics and raising tambaqui, a fish popular in the region. Morales retreated to this safe haven—the region where his political career began in the 1990s — hoping to withstand a campaign to demonize him.

Morales was the most powerful president in Bolivia’s history, even more so than Víctor Paz Estenssoro, the leader of the 1952 National Revolution who nationalized the mines, pushed through agrarian reform, and established universal suffrage. Morales was also the longest-serving president in a country frequently wracked by political instability: 13 years, 9 months, and 19 days. And his star shone well beyond his home country.

Morales was one of the most popular leaders of Latin America’s pink tide. His trips abroad drew huge and enthusiastic crowds, captivated by his aura as an indigenous, socialist, and anti-imperialist icon. If Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva projected the image of a metalworker from Brazil’s impoverished Northeast who forced his way to the presidency, Morales was an Aymara (one of Bolivia’s major indigenous groups) from the deep Altiplano who migrated with his family to the Chapare jungle. Against all the odds, and wielding pronounced anti-American rhetoric, he built a political career that led to the pinnacle of power.1 How did he do it, and what is the nature of this leader’s legacy?

Andean capitalism

Morales’s “Democratic and Cultural Revolution,” launched in January 2006 with a ceremony at the pre-Columbian ruins of Tiwanaku, drove two historic processes that sought to reshape Bolivia: the nationalization of hydrocarbons and the convening of the Constituent Assembly. The “recovery of gas” was part of a long-held revolutionary nationalist tradition based on the idea, popularized by the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano’s famous book on Latin America’s “open veins,” of a poor country sitting atop enormous riches plundered by large corporations. According to this view, placing natural resources under state control would finally make industrialization possible. In parallel, the Assembly set another goal: building a plurinational country that truly reflected the country. But the leap from nationalizations (in the 1930s, ’50s, ’70s, and 2000s) to industrialization encountered obstacles. The state traditionally lacks the capacity to carry through such processes, which often end in disappointments that feed new cycles of economic liberalism.

Faced with the difficulty of grasping Bolivia’s complex sociopolitical dynamics, analysts often reach for the idea of abigarramiento (“motley society”), introduced by the Marxist sociologist René Zavaleta in the 1970s. This concept sought to capture the existence of social formations in which multiple historical temporalities, modes of production, and cultural horizons overlap without ever fusing. It is not simply diversity, it is a conflictual, unresolved coexistence between different societies that never quite became one.

The neoliberals of the 1990s, above all President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, tried to address these realities with the tools of multiculturalism, backed by the World Bank and other multilateral lenders. Under this framework, several reforms were introduced that expanded indigenous-peasant participation in municipal spaces. But when Sánchez de Lozada attempted to extend liberal democracy into the countryside, indigenous-peasant actors appropriated these mechanisms to reinforce their own power through their unions and community institutions — which were anything but liberal. The MAS, though it opposed those reforms, became one of their principal beneficiaries.

If the reformists of the ’90s sought to combine multiculturalism with neoliberalism, Morales and his government combined multiculturalism with revolutionary nationalism. But there was one crucial difference: This time indigenous people were no longer the supporting cast of an elite-led project but the protagonists. Morales was president, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and a kind of spiritual leader of the nation. As the historian Françoise Martinez has shown, in the 1925 centennial album marking Bolivia’s independence — a richly illustrated 1,142-page publication — indigenous people were barely visible, dismissed as an obstacle to civilization. Later, with the 1952 Revolution, indigeneity became part of the nation, but often in folklorized form. Now, with Morales, the nation’s family photo placed indigenous people at its center.

Even so, the economic and social model implemented by the MAS was less radical than foreign observers tend to assume. Terms like suma qamaña (living well) and communitarian socialism gained traction in leftwing political analyses on Bolivia. In reality, the economic model was closer to what former vice president Álvaro García Linera called “Andean capitalism.” The concept lacked epic resonance and was largely set aside, but it captured the MAS project better than the communitarian-socialist rhetoric that surrounded it.

Although the MAS won the support of indigenous communities, it was above all the party of informal and semi-informal economies (peasants, merchants, mining cooperatives, among others), sectors with a strong entrepreneurial spirit and an ambiguous relationship to the state. They demanded its services while rejecting its interference, since these economies were built on strong family ties rather than state institutions.

The MAS’s most loyal base was the coca-leaf growers of the Chapare, in the subtropical lands of Cochabamba in central Bolivia. This is an important sector for Bolivia’s peasant movement, marked by little communal culture, stigmatized as “narco-traffickers” (because so much of the coca leaf is diverted into the production of cocaine), and hardened by the fight against US-backed coca eradication in the 1990s and early 2000s. Morales and his faction effectively reclaimed this “millenary leaf” as a symbol of national dignity and anti-imperialist struggle, rallying behind the slogan ¡Kawsachun Coca, Wañuchun Yanquis! (Long live coca, death to the Yankees!).

At the same time, the MAS, founded in 1999, managed to unite the whole of Bolivia’s traditionally fragmented left. It brought together indigenist, Marxist, and left-nationalist traditions, but its core was unions and social organizations, unified by their criticism of neoliberalism and “internal colonialism”: the colonialism of Bolivia’s own elites, who replaced the Spanish colonizers after independence in 1825. Like Bolivia itself, the MAS is also a “motley” party. The party expanded from the countryside into the cities in a process the political scientist Moira Zuazo called the “ruralization” of Bolivian politics. Peasants replaced miners, the traditional vanguard of Bolivia’s popular movement, following the crisis of state-run mining in the 1980s. But this ruralization unfolded in the context of rising social mobility and migration: Young people left to study in the cities and later returned to the countryside, and rural leaders enmeshed with urban politics. This gave rise to the emergence of what the anthropologist Alison Spedding termed “semi-peasants.”

The MAS emerged out of massive social mobilizations, such as the water and gas wars, which plunged the entire political system into crisis. But this occurred against a backdrop of deeper shifts: the decline of La Paz’s traditional elites, which had long wielded power, and the useless struggle of Santa Cruz’s elites — based in the country’s agroindustrial east — to convert their economic power into national political hegemony.

New indigenous elites

This decline has left the traditional elites of Andean western Bolivia — La Paz’s above all — increasingly dependent on the rents of their participation in political power. In parallel, an indigenous-mestizo bourgeoisie has emerged, controlling much of trade, mining, and even smuggling. These indigenous-mestizo nouveaux riches display their wealth publicly in various ways. The most traditional is through festivals, such as the Gran Poder, but in recent years they have built the so-called cholets — a blend of the words cholo (urban indigenous) and “chalet.” These are multistory buildings, brightly colored and lavishly ornamented, that typically combine shops or event halls with the owner’s residence on the top floor. These buildings can reproduce structures resembling the Titanic, the Eiffel Tower, or superheroes like Iron Man: a kitschy architecture designed to display wealth and power. Most of these buildings rise in El Alto, a city of about one million overlooking La Paz that at first glance appears poor and chaotic, but behind that impression lies enormous economic dynamism. Some indigenous intellectuals, such as Pablo Mamani, speak of qamiris to define these wealthy indigenous people. “There is the emergence of an Aymara elite that has the economic capacity and the imaginative capacity to create costly constructions, in a creative, neo-Andean form,” Mamani writes. “They are part of an emergence that deserves not only an urbanistic gaze, but an economic, sociological, and political one, in order to understand its dimensions.” These economic sectors are integrated into “globalization from below,” with growing commercial ties to Asia. There is also a large mestizo sector that controls the powerful mining cooperatives — including those devoted to gold mining, which is enjoying an unprecedented boom.

At the other end of the country, Santa Cruz’s white elites present themselves as Bolivia’s dynamic element. Resting on agricultural production, services to the hydrocarbons industry, and finance, they have operated since the 1950s as conservative, pro-market forces and are sometimes compared to the elites of neighboring Paraguay, which is traditionally conservative and virulently anticommunist.

The MAS’s Andean capitalism sought to acknowledge this reality and build an economy in which the state would control the rents from natural resources, above all gas, and use them to drive national development. In an article published in 2006, García Linera explained that, contrary to the views of various radical leftists, socialism was not possible in Bolivia. Accepting that reality, the goal then became “to once again place the state at the center of the Bolivian economy and, around it, integrate foreign investment, local private investment, and peasant, communal, and micro-entrepreneurial-artisanal sectors, aiming at a productive shock.” That shock never arrived, but the economy grew by about 5% annually during the MAS’s first decade, and Bolivia experienced a sustained economic boom driven by both rising commodity prices and a prudent macroeconomic policy.

The limits of left-wing populism

The MAS government was highly effective at shaping a new Bolivia, but it failed to build effective and enduring institutions. The 2009 Constitution was a great advance, but it was not backed by a solid state apparatus that could sustain the statist project. At the same time, the so-called “government of social movements” had two faces: social leaders were brought into it but only for their movements to be co-opted. Being the leader of a social movement became a stepping stone for entering the administration. The MAS came to be seen as a party of jobseekers. Despite its radical discourse, it neither wanted to nor was able to improve the state’s institutional framework, which remained at the mercy of the corporatist demands of its social base. That is why complex reforms, like those in health and education, never advanced. The long-awaited industrialization process was reduced to building factories — for paper, glass, milk — of dubious viability to satisfy the demands of small towns and communities.

But the greatest limit to the MAS’s proceso de cambio (process of change; the party’s term for its overarching political goal) undoubtedly was Morales’s own determination to remain in power indefinitely. From 2016, his obsession with reelection replaced any transformative agenda. That year, the government held a referendum: Should the constitution be amended to allow Morales to run for a fourth term? “No” defeated “Yes” by a narrow margin, but Morales disregarded the outcome. In addition, the ubiquity of Morales’s image and hyper-populist politics produced social fatigue and a disconnect with younger generations that had grown up under him, some of whom were even drawn to the libertarian Javier Milei in neighboring Argentina. What had once been new became old, as Latin America drifted rightward.

The first major rupture came in 2019, when Morales did seek a fourth term — and instead the election broke his hold on power. The vote count was suspended for nearly 24 hours; when it resumed, Morales’s lead had widened just enough to avoid a runoff. The opposition cried fraud. Weeks of protests followed, led by civic committees and opposition figures, until police units began mutinying in early November, which plunged the government’s authority into crisis. On November 10, with the military also withdrawing its backing, Morales resigned and went into exile. Jeanine Áñez, a little-known opposition senator, assumed the presidency days later; the MAS denounced a coup d’état. When she took power, she said that God and the Bible were returning to the presidential palace.

Emboldened, the Áñez government pushed for a vengeful conservative project that ultimately collided with reality. In 2020, the MAS showed it still retained its strength and, against all odds, returned to power with Luis Arce Catacora, a former economy minister, as president. The right-wing opposition retreated as the popular classes voted once again for their party.

But things were no longer the same. Tensions between Morales — now back from exile in Argentina — and the new president swiftly escalated. Arce’s government sought Morales’s imprisonment, and Morales, in turn, worked toward his former minister’s downfall. In fact, Morales’s current internal exile in the Chapare began under Arce’s government, which used state power to divide the MAS. But rather than opening up to build a broad alliance, the coca leader retreated ever further into the company of his most loyal followers.

The return of the right

The 2025 elections unfolded amid unforeseen circumstances. After Arce kept control of the MAS party label, Morales decided to found a new party, EVO Pueblo. He had been disqualified from running, and when he failed to have that overturned, he called on voters to spoil their ballots; in the first round, null votes reached nearly 20%. While this showed that Morales retained significant political influence, especially in rural or semi-rural areas, it no longer translated into institutional weight: The MAS was left with almost no parliamentary representation. Morales refused to back the MAS’s young senator Andrónico Rodríguez, who sought to lead a way beyond the internecine struggle between Morales and Arce. Despite having once been Morales’s political heir apparent, Andrónico came to be regarded by Morales as a traitor — as did, in Morales’s eyes, his vice president of nearly 14 years, García Linera.

In the second round of the 2025 elections, MAS voters no longer cast null ballots. In a contest between two right-wing candidates, they chose the lesser evil: the pragmatic Rodrigo Paz Pereira over the hardline former president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga. Paz also benefited from the popularity of his running mate, Captain Edmand Lara Montaño, a former police officer who had been expelled from the force for exposing corruption and had become a TikTok influencer. Bolivia thus joined South America’s rightward shift, albeit incompletely. The MAS imploded, and the left-wing populist model had run its course. But unlike in some of Bolivia’s neighbors, it was not the far right that seized power. Even so, Paz’s government has positioned itself close to the United States (and to Israel) while trying to maintain ties with Lula da Silva in Brazil. Tellingly, Paz chose as one of his principal advisers the controversial Argentine Fernando Cerimedo, dubbed Latin America’s “MAGA man” by The Economist. Cerimedo, cofounder of the Argentine troll-newspaper La Derecha Diario, is an expert in dirty political warfare, or, in Steve Bannon’s terms, in “flooding the zone with shit.” But Cerimedo’s story in Bolivia ended badly: on August 18, Cerimedo was arrested at Bolivia’s Viru Viru airport, suspected of having sent hitmen to kill his ex-partner, the lawyer Nadia Beller. The case has sparked a political scandal of enormous proportions. Following the attack, Beller — who went from being a MAS supporter to a fierce anti-Morales figure — not only accused Cerimedo but also denounced a “corruption network” surrounding Paz that allegedly involves the president’s family.

The Paz government embodies a return to power of the traditional elites — not without significant doses of anti-indigenous racism — amid a spirit of revenge against the MAS. This vengeance was one of the forces behind the more than fifty days of roadblocks that shook the country in May and June of this year, triggered by a law letting small farmers’ land serve as loan collateral and fed by months of rising costs after the government had ended longstanding fuel subsidies the previous December. Even after Paz repealed the land law, the blockades continued, organized largely by the Bolivian Workers’ Central and peasant organizations such as the Túpac Katari Federation. It is a weak government, challenged by both the left and the radical right.

Scattered

The Bolivian left finds itself in crisis. Following the end of the Cold War and the neoliberal hegemony that took hold in Bolivia, it rebuilt itself from the countryside. Morales’s leadership unified an array of political groups and cultures; today the left has returned to its traditional scattering. The implosion of MAS has given rise to splintering factions that blame one another for the disaster. The question now is how a reconstruction of the unified left could possibly take place. What everyone agrees on is that the MAS era, as we knew it, has come to an end — and that Morales has permanently lost his aura as an exceptional leader.

This has happened, in part, because of the difficulty of the “process of change” to adapt to the new circumstances of the past two decades, especially social mobility. Today there are more students of indigenous origin at private universities, some coming from the countryside, while grassroots entrepreneurship has blossomed alongside economic growth. But today’s young people are more connected and globalized in their habits of consumption (including the specialty coffee shops that have taken over Bolivian cities) and their ideas (libertarianism is popular among some students). The discourses that mobilized enormous popular energy two decades ago now seem outdated. And Morales has done nothing to catch up. On the contrary, he has retreated into ideological positions that make it possible for him to praise “brother” Vladimir Putin as a “liberator of peoples” and to support Maduro. The question everyone asks today is whether the government will move forward with his arrest and what consequences that would carry if it does.

Even so, a new generation of young leftwing and pro-Indigenous social leaders and intellectuals is emerging, positioning themselves critically against both the MAS’s past government and the new rightwing administration. What remains of the MAS, and Morales himself — who retains influence in rural Bolivia — will have to reckon with this situation if they hope to survive and regroup. But the Bolivian left probably won’t be able to rebuild itself from either anti-Evista positions or an outright rejection of the “process of change.” The Bolivian left is searching for new leaders and political projects capable of regrouping the population left orphaned by the MAS’s implosion.

Pablo Stefanoni is editor-in-chief of Nueva Sociedad. He is the author of ¿La rebeldía se volvió de derechas? Cómo el antiprogresismo y la anticorrección política están construyendo un nuevo sentido común (y por qué la izquierda está perdiendo la iniciativa) (Siglo XXI, 2020) and Un fantasma recorre el mundo. Cómo funciona la máquina de guerra reaccionaria (y qué podemos hacer para enfrentarla) (Siglo XXI, 2026).

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  There is a story within the story here: The US ambassador who most fiercely opposed Morales in the early 2000s, Victor Manuel Rocha, turned out to be a Cuban agent — and his invectives against Morales may only have helped improve Morales’s standing in the polls.