Polls closed in a Bolivian presidential election Sunday with voters choosing between two pro-business candidates, ending two decades of socialist rule that have left the beleaguered South American nation deep in economic crisis.

With dollars and fuel in short supply and annual inflation at more than 20 percent, weary voters snubbed the Movement Toward Socialism party founded by former president Evo Morales in a first electoral round in August.

Bolivia is enduring its worst economic crisis in decades, with long queues now a common sight at gas stations.

“We hope the country improves,” homemaker Maria Eugenia Penaranda, 56, said, bundled up against the cold as she cast her vote in La Paz, which is 3,600 meters (11,800 feet) above sea level.

“We cannot make ends meet. There is a lot of su

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