Bolivia’s President Rodrigo Paz announced he will cut his own salary and those of his cabinet ministers by half, as the country’s political crisis escalates with protests and road blockades demanding his resignation.
Speaking at an event in Sucre, the constitutional capital, on Monday, Paz said the pay cut demonstrates “the government’s commitment to the country.”
The move comes as Bolivia enters its fourth week of political and social unrest. The protests have caused growing supply-chain problems in the cities of La Paz and El Alto, where severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine are affecting markets, hospitals and gas stations.
Protesters are pressuring Paz’s centrist government to cancel austerity measures and address soaring living costs. Demands include higher wages and reinstating fuel subsidies that had held prices at 2006 levels. The demonstrations come amid concerns that the president is aligning with big business and elites, ruling in their favor – particularly as he has not appointed any indigenous or working-class members to his cabinet, a departure from past practice.
Paz, who took office in November and inherited a struggling economy, has defended spending cuts and fuel-subsidy reductions as necessary to stabilise public finances.
