Twenty years of socialist rule ends in Bolivia as two conservatives head to a presidential runoff

Bolivia is headed to a presidential run-off election between a center-right politician and a right-wing candidate after voters on Sunday rejected another term of the Movement for Socialism, which has governed the country for nearly two decades.

Rodrigo Paz of the Christian Democratic Party celebrates with supporters after hearing the early results of the first round of Bolivia’s presidential election on Sunday.

According to preliminary results from the South America nation’s election commission, Sen. Rodrigo Paz, 57, of the Christian Democratic Party, had 1.6 million votes or 32.1% of the vote, followed by former rightwing interim President Jorge Quiroga, 65, who garnered 1.3 million votes for 26.8% of the vote tally.

Neither received enough votes to win the election outright, necessitating a run-off in October, as was widely anticipated.

Eduardo del Castillo, 36, candidate for the ruling Movement for Socialism, finished sixth in a contest of eight candidates, with 159,769 votes, a little more than 3% of the vote.

More than five million eligible voters in the country of 12.4 million cast ballots, the election commission said.

“I want to thank all the men and women who made this possible and gave a voice to those of us who had none, who didn’t appear in the polls, who didn’t exist,” Paz said in his victory speech in the Bolivian capital of La Paz, The Guardian reported. “We will fight corruption head on, dammit!”

Paz’s lead comes as a surprise as polls showed businessman Samuel Doria Medina, 66, of the National Unity Front party, was the frontrunner, according to the BBC.

The election commission shows Medina finished third with a little more than 1 million votes and a hair shy of 20% of the vote count.

Paz, son of former President Jaime Paz Zamora, who served from 1989 to 1993, campaigned on ending corruption and redistributing central government funds to the regions.

The run-off will see the country elect its first non-socialist leader since 2006, when the country elected union organizer Evo Morales its first indigenous president, who served until his resignation amid protests over voting irregularities in 2019. MAS party member Jeanine Anez became interim president until 2020, when Luis Arce Catacora was elected president.

The unpopular Arce decided not to run for re-election.

Sunday’s vote comes as the country is experiencing an economic crisis, with the New York-based Foundation for Economic Education libertarian think tank saying its economy is on the brink of collapse.
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Credit: United Press International