Bolivia election: voters bring two decades of leftist politics to an end

A seismic political shift has taken place in Bolivia. The country’s leftist Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas) party, which has dominated Bolivian politics for nearly 20 years, was voted out of power in a general election on August 17.

Centre-right Rodrigo Paz Pereira and rightwing Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, who briefly led the country in 2001, will now compete for the presidency in a run-off vote in October. According to the electoral court’s preliminary tally, Paz Pereira won 32.2% of the vote and Quiroga won 26.9%.

Bolivia’s deeply unpopular president, Luis Arce, who was the Mas presidential candidate in 2020, chose not to run. And his pick, current interior minister Eduardo del Castillo, only won 3.16% of the vote. That is just enough for the party to avoid losing its legal status.

Beyond exhaustion with the rule of Mas, the election was dominated by two critical issues. First was the dire state of the economy. Bolivia is enduring its worst economic crisis in four decades, with US dollars and fuel in short supply. Inflation also jumped from 12% in January to 23% in June. Many Bolivians are struggling to make ends meet.

Second, voters were confronted with a decision to continue Bolivia’s old style status quo politics of patronage or opt for a new political ideology. Bolivians have long experienced divisive politics under the old order. The voters were clear; they wanted change.

Speaking after the results were announced, Paz Pereira said: “Bolivia is not only calling for a change of government, it is also calling for a change to the political system. This is the beginning of a great victory and a great transformation.”

End of an era

The results are likely to put an end to the political career of Evo Morales, Bolivia’s three-time former president and the founder of Mas. Morales first entered office in 2006 as part of the “pink tide” of leftist leaders that swept into power across Latin America during the commodities boom of the early 2000s.

He was long seen as the shining light of the Latin American left. His policies lifted millions of people, particularly Bolivian indigenous communities who have suffered centuries of marginalisation and discrimination, out of poverty.

But his critics accuse him of undermining Bolivia’s political and legal institutions by, for example, appointing loyalists to the judiciary and electoral bodies.

In 2016, when a referendum narrowly failed to lift restrictions on presidential term limits, Morales appointed a constitutional court to circumvent the rules and scrap term limits altogether. This gave him the power to run for office indefinitely.

Then, in 2019, widespread protests over a disputed election resulted in Morales losing the support of the military and police. He fled Bolivia, with his supporters saying he was forced out in a coup. Morales has remained highly active in Bolivian politics since then, though this has morphed into a contentious struggle for influence.

Mas has fallen victim to bitter infighting. Arce and Morales, who initially both wanted to be the Mas 2025 presidential candidate, became locked in a fight for control of Mas. And when a constitutional court ruling barred Morales from running, he accused the government of trying to disqualify his candidacy.

Morales called for his supporters to boycott the vote. Preliminary results suggest 19.1% of ballots were null and void, an unusually high proportion in Bolivia’s electoral history. This followed months of regular violent protests, which were most intense in rural areas where support for Morales is concentrated.

The election outcome can be seen as representing the resolve of Bolivian citizens to prevent the further erosion of their democratic institutions and put a stop to the politics of populism. While waiting to vote at polling stations across La Paz, several people said they were choosing to vote for el menos peor, the lesser evil.

Paz Pereira was a surprise vote leader. Opinion polls had suggested Samuel Doria Medina, one Bolivia’s most successful businessman, was the frontrunner. But support for Paz Pereira seems to have surged after he teamed up with Edman Lara, a TikTok-savvy former police captain who went viral for denouncing corruption within the police.

Quiroga and Doria Medina, who has now announced he will back Paz Pereira in the run-off, used their election campaigns to warn of the need for a fiscal adjustment to save Bolivia from insolvency. This may include the elimination of food and fuel subsidies, which some analysts say risks sparking social unrest.

The road ahead for Bolivia’s incoming president will be hard and bumpy. His first task will be to rein in runaway inflation. Then he will have to put back together a fractured nation marked by racial and ideological divides.

He will also have to work on realigning Bolivia’s relationship with rest of the world – by extricating itself from its strong association with pariah regimes like Iran, Venezuela and Russia. The new leader has a mountain to climb.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Amalendu Misra, Lancaster University

Amalendu Misra does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.