February 21, 2017, marked a year since Evo Morales’s narrow defeat in a referendum on whether he could run for a fourth term as Bolivian president. Morales is the glue that holds his party — the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) — together, which goes a long way to explaining its inability to identify a viable replacement candidate over the past year. This has led to party declarations that Morales will run again in 2019.

Massive demonstrations were held on the February 21 anniversary, both for and against another term. Their composition reflects the country’s ongoing divides — between rural and urban, indigenous and mestizo, poor and rich. Pro-MAS forces, which are more rural and indigenous, called February 21 “the day of the lie,” because they argue that a carefully timed scandal accounted for Evo’s loss. The gossip disguised as news was worthy of a telenovela, featuring a former girlfriend of Evo’s, a supposed bastard son who proved nonexistent, and as-yet-unproven accusations of influence trafficking involving the girlfriend, the government, and Chinese investors.

The opposition proclaimed February 21 “the day of democracy.” The crowd in downtown La Paz was dominated by the urban middle class, which has grown by 10 percent since Morales came to power in 2006. They have benefited from the 2000s commodity boom, coupled with the MAS’s advantageous 2006 renegotiation with multinational corporations of Bolivia’s natural-gas contracts, the chief source of government income. Ten years on, declining international commodity prices make the middle classes’ newfound status shaky, weakening their inclination to stay loyal to the government whose policies nurtured their ascent.