Presidential runoff seals shift to the right for Bolivia

The victory of center-right candidate Rodrigo Paz marks the end of 20 years of leftist governments

Bolivia held a presidential runoff vote on Sunday, with the polls seeing a face-off between two right-wing candidates, centrist Senator Rodrigo Paz Pereira and former conservative President Jorge Quiroga.

Paz secured 54.6% of the vote, while Quiroga received 45.4%, according to preliminary results. While the ballots will now be subjected to a thorough manual examination, the final result is unlikely to deviate from the initial tally announced after 97% of ballots were counted.

The election marks the end of the 20-year-long rule of the leftist Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party, which suffered a crushing defeat in the election held in late August. While President Luis Arce did not run for office again, the candidate fielded by MAS, Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo, won only 3.16% of the vote, just above the threshold needed for the party to retain its legal status.

The first round of the election was dominated by right-wingers, with Paz scoring 32.1% and Quiroga getting some 26.8% of the vote. Center-right business tycoon Samuel Doria Medina, who led the polls throughout most of the campaign, ended up third with 19.9% of the vote. Medina was quick to acknowledge the defeat and endorse Paz for the runoff.  

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Both Paz and Quiroga campaigned on dismantling the ruling party’s legacy, with the difference between the candidates boiling down to their methods. While the election winner has been promising gradual reforms, Quiroga has been calling for swift changes and promised to introduce strict austerity measures to overcome the crisis.

The MAS party never recovered from the 2019 turmoil, when then President Evo Morales was ousted in a coup shortly after an election in which he won a highly controversial fourth consecutive term in office. Previously, Morales narrowly lost a referendum on amending a constitutional clause restricting the president and vice president to only two terms.

The coup propelled right-wing politician Jeanine Anez, the second vice president of the Senate, into the presidential seat. The MAS party, however, managed to regain its positions in the October 2020 snap election, while Anez ultimately ended up in jail for crimes committed during a crackdown on mass protests in the wake of the coup.