Early outcomes confirmed centrist Rodrigo Paz take the lead, with 32.8 p.c of the vote, in shock final result.
Bolivia is heading to a presidential run-off between a centrist and right-wing candidate, confirming the top of 20 years of presidency by the Motion for Socialism (MAS), in line with the South American nation’s electoral council.
With greater than 91 p.c of the ballots counted on Sunday evening, preliminary outcomes confirmed centrist Rodrigo Paz of the Christian Democratic Social gathering (PDC) within the lead, with 32.8 p.c of the vote.
Conservative former interim President Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, of the Alianza Libre coalition, was in second place, with 26.4 p.c of the vote, which means he’ll face Paz, the son of former left-leaning President Jaime Paz, in a run-off election on October 19.
Candidates wanted to surpass 50 p.c, or 40 p.c with a 10-point margin of victory, to keep away from a run-off.
Al Jazeera’s Latin America editor Lucia Newman, reporting from Bolivia’s Santa Cruz de la Sierra, stated the early outcomes confirmed that MAS, which has ruled the nation since 2005, is “out of the image”.
However the “greatest shock”, Newman stated, is “that the frontrunner is none apart from any individual who was polling between fourth and fifth place up till now”.
Paz is “extra to the centre” than his father, Newman added.
Eight presidential candidates have been within the operating in Sunday’s presidential election – from the far-right to the political left.
Pre-election polls had proven Samuel Doria Medina, a rich businessman and former planning minister, as certainly one of two frontrunners alongside Quiroga, who served as interim president and vp beneath former navy chief President Hugo Banzer.
Former leftist President Evo Morales was barred from operating, and the outgoing socialist President Luis Arce, who had fallen out with Morales, opted out of the race.
The division inside their leftist coalition, together with the nation’s deep economic crisis, meant few anticipated MAS to return to energy.
Official outcomes are due inside seven days. Voters may even elect all 26 senators and 130 deputies, and officers assume workplace on November 8.
Spiralling inflation
The Andean nation has been struggling via its worst financial disaster in a era, marked by annual inflation of just about 25 p.c and important shortages of US {dollars} and gasoline.
Bolivians repeatedly took to the streets to protest rocketing costs and hours-long waits for gasoline, bread and different fundamentals within the lead-up to Sunday’s election.
Bolivia loved greater than a decade of sturdy development and Indigenous upliftment beneath Morales, who nationalised the fuel sector and ploughed the proceeds into social programmes that halved excessive poverty throughout his stint in energy between 2006 and 2019.
However an absence of latest fuel initiatives beneath Morales, who was outspoken on environmental points and climate change, has seen fuel revenues plummet from a peak of $6.1bn in 2013 to $1.6bn final yr.
With the nation’s different main useful resource, lithium, nonetheless underground, the federal government has practically run out of the overseas alternate wanted to import gasoline, wheat and different foodstuffs.
