Candidates vying to lead Bolivia voted on Sunday as the nation went to the polls to elect a new president and parliament in elections that could result in the election of a right-wing government for the first time in more than two decades.

The vote, which could spell the end of the Andean nation’s long-dominant leftist party, is one of the most consequential for Bolivia in recent times — and one of the most unpredictable.

In the run-up to Sunday, a remarkable 30% or so of voters remained undecided.

Polls showed the two leading right-wing candidates, multimillionaire business owner Samuel Doria Medina and former President Jorge Fernando “Tuto” Quiroga, locked in a virtual dead heat.

Voting is mandatory in Bolivia, where some 7.9 million Bolivians are eligible to vote.

The election marks a watershed moment for the Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party, whose founder, charismatic ex-President Evo Morales, rose to power as part of the “pink tide” of leftist leaders that swept into office across Latin America during the commodities boom of the early 2000s.

Now shattered by infighting, the party is battling for its survival in Sunday's elections.

The outcome will determine whether Bolivia — a nation of 12 million people with the largest lithium reserves on Earth — follows a growing trend in Latin America, where right-wing leaders like Argentina’s libertarian Javier Milei, Ecuador’s strongman Daniel Noboa and El Salvador’s conservative populist Nayib Bukele have surged in popularity.

A right-wing government in Bolivia could trigger a major geopolitical realignment for a country now allied with Venezuela’s socialist-inspired government and world powers such as China, Russia and Iran.

The right-wing opposition candidates bill the race as a chance to chart a new destiny for Bolivia.

But both front-runners, Doria Medina and Quiroga, have served in past neoliberal governments and ran for president three times before — losing at least twice to Morales.

An election day ban on the use of all but authorized vehicles left the normally bustling streets of La Paz and neighboring El Alto deserted on Sunday, reflecting the somber mood.

The government also imposed a dry law forbidding the sale of alcohol and reported arresting hundreds of violators.

Doria Medina and Quiroga have praised the Trump administration and vowed to restore ties with the United States — ruptured in 2008 when Morales expelled the American ambassador.

They also have expressed interest in doing business with Israel, which has no diplomatic relations with Bolivia, and called for foreign private companies to develop Bolivia's abundant natural resources.

After storming to office in 2006, Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, nationalized the nation’s oil and gas industry, using the profits to reduce poverty, expand infrastructure and improve the lives of the rural poor.

After three consecutive presidential terms, as well as a contentious bid for an unprecedented fourth in 2019 that set off popular unrest and led to his ouster, Morales has been barred from this race by Bolivia’s constitutional court.

If, as is widely expected, no presidential candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, or 40% of the vote with a lead of 10 percentage points, the top two candidates will compete in a runoff on October 19 for the first time since Bolivia’s 1982 return to democracy.

All 130 seats in Bolivia’s Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Parliament, are also up for grabs, along with 36 in the Senate, the upper house.

AP Victor R. Caivano, Cesar Olmos, Carlos Guerrero and Juan Karita.