Centre-right senator Rodrigo Paz Pereira, 58, won Bolivia’s presidential runoff on Sunday and will be the country’s next president, marking a shift to the right after nearly 20 years of dominance by the leftist Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas) party.
We must create jobs,” Paz Pereira told supporters at a hotel in La Paz, just over two hours after the results were announced.
Election day passed without incident, according to the electoral court and international observers, including those from the European Union.
The composition of Congress is already seen as one of the main challenges for Paz Pereira as president.
During the campaign, Paz Pereira said that if elected, the law would be applied to Evo Morales “as to any other citizen.”
After nearly 20 years of dominance by the leftist Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas) party, Bolivia will see a shift to the right with the election of Rodrigo Paz Pereira, a center-right senator who is 58, as the country’s next president.
According to the electoral court’s “preliminary” count, which was just over 97 percent of the ballots, Paz Pereira received 54 point 6 percent of the vote, while right-wing former president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga received 45 point 4 percent.
The figures, the electoral court emphasized, are “preliminary and not definitive.”. The reason for this is that Bolivia employs two counts: the faster one, which is based on pictures of each ballot that are sent to a data processing facility, and the slower definitive one, which involves public counting and examination of each vote at polling places before it is entered into the system.
The official results could be released by the court in as little as seven days.
After two decades that have excluded us from the economy and geopolitics, let’s continue to forge a new course for the future. Paz Pereira told supporters at a La Paz hotel, just over two hours after the results were revealed, “We have to create jobs.”.
He went on to say: “Ideology doesn’t provide for people. That is what we want to strive for: the right to work, robust institutions, legal security, respect for private property, and future certainty. “”.
In his remarks, Bolivia’s next president also mentioned his US counterpart, Donald Trump, expressing his desire “to ensure that Bolivia does not lack hydrocarbons, to be part of the solutions from 8 November [the inauguration date] onward, and to build a close relationship with one of the most important governments in the world.”. “.”.
Paz Pereira, a senator from the Tarija department, is the son of former president Jaime Paz Zamora, who served from 1989 to 1993.
He was the big surprise of the first round, winning after beginning his campaign near the bottom of the opinion polls, despite being an experienced politician who had held positions as a congressman, mayor, and city councilor.
European Union and other international observers, as well as the electoral court, reported that the election day went off without a hitch.
Quiroga, the defeated candidate who was making his fourth attempt to regain power after serving as president for 12 months between 2001 and 2002, started his speech at a hotel in La Paz where his team had assembled by claiming he had called Paz Pereira to congratulate him. This prompted shouts of “No!” from the audience.
“Please, I know how much pain we’re going through. “Believe me, we would put it on the table if we had systemic evidence [of electoral fraud],” Quiroga said, adding that he would keep an eye on the final vote count but that he “respected the work” of the electoral court in the first round and “will respect it” in the run-off.
The election on Sunday was not only Bolivia’s first presidential runoff, but it was also the first time since 2005 that no candidate from the Mas party, which initially came to power under Evo Morales and then under the current president Luis Arce, was on the ballot.
Arce, who was extremely unpopular, decided not to run and instead nominated Eduardo del Castillo, his interior minister, who received slightly more than 3% of the vote in the first round, which is the bare minimum required for the party to retain its legal standing.
The country’s severe economic crisis, the worst in forty years, characterized by skyrocketing inflation and shortages of both fuel and dollars, as well as the acrimonious rivalry between Morales and his erstwhile political protégé Arce, are blamed for the fallen party.
The vice-minister of communication’s official Facebook page featured an image showing the words, “The Masistas [Mas members] are finally leaving! After 20 years of ruining the country,” shortly after the polls closed. It’s still unknown who uploaded the post, which was removed a few hours later.
In the upcoming legislature, the party that previously controlled two-thirds of Congress will only have two members and no senators.
One of Paz Pereira’s biggest obstacles as president is already thought to be the makeup of Congress.
With 16 senators and 49 deputies, his party, the Partido Demócrata Cristiano (PDC), won the most seats, but it lacks the majority needed to pass legislation and reforms.
Paz Pereira traveled throughout Bolivia in recent years, visiting roughly 220 of the 327 municipalities in the country, and he was especially successful in areas that were Mas’ strongholds until recently.
Paz Pereira ran on a platform of “popular capitalism,” promising low-interest loans for small business owners in a nation where economists estimate that 80 percent of the workforce consists of informal and self-employed workers.
Along with promising to reduce import taxes on items like technology and automobiles, he also stated that “there will be no more smuggling because everything will be legal” in Bolivia and that the cancellation of citizens’ debts to the government would help the country’s economy.
The popularity of Paz Pereira’s running mate, Edman Lara Montaño, 39, a former police captain, is seen by many analysts as a key factor in his success.
Capt. Lara gained notoriety by revealing purported instances of corruption in the police force through videos that went viral on TikTok. This ultimately resulted in his dismissal from the force.
Running for the first time under the banner of “anti-corruption,” Capt. Lara initially seemed to be an independent candidate. He has already stated that he would not hesitate to turn against the next president if he witnessed misconduct, stating, “I’m the guarantee – if Rodrigo Paz doesn’t deliver, I’ll confront him.”. “”.
Following the results, Lara stated: “We need to ensure the supply of gasoline and diesel; we need to rebuild the nation’s economy.”. We must stop corruption and stabilize the costs of necessities because people are suffering. “.”.
The arrest warrant against Morales, who has been in central Bolivia for the past year and is being prevented from being arrested by hundreds of coca farmers because he is accused of fathering a child with a 15-year-old while he was president, is another “legacy” of Arce that Paz Pereira will have to deal with in addition to the severe economic crisis.
If elected, Evo Morales would be subject to the law “just like any other citizen,” Paz Pereira stated during the campaign. “”.
