Presidential candidate Rodrigo Paz greets supporters after preliminary results showed him leading in the presidential runoff in La Paz, Bolivia, on Sunday.
Natacha Pisarenko/AP
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Natacha Pisarenko/AP
LA PAZ, Bolivia – Rodrigo Paz, a centrist senator who was never a prominent national figure until now, won Bolivia’s presidential election on Sunday, preliminary results showed, galvanizing voters outraged by the country’s economic crisis and frustrated after 20 years of rule by the Movement Towards Socialism party.
“The trend is irreversible,” said Óscar Hassenteufel, president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, of Paz’s advantage over his rival, former right-wing president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga.
Paz obtained 54% of the votes, according to the first results, compared to 45% for Quiroga.
Paz took the podium Sunday night flanked by his wife, María Helena Urquidi, and their four adult children. The hotel ballroom in La Paz, Bolivia’s capital, went crazy, with people shouting his name and holding phones up.
“Today Bolivia can be sure that this will be a government that will bring solutions,” he told his followers. “Bolivia breathes winds of change and renewal to move forward.”
Shortly after the results were known, Quiroga gave in to Paz.
“I called Rodrigo Paz and wished him congratulations,” he said in a somber speech, which drew boos and cries of fraud from the audience. But Quiroga urged calm, saying that a refusal to recognize the results would “leave the country hanging.”
“We would simply exacerbate the problems of people suffering from the crisis,” he said. “We need a mature attitude right now.”
Paz and his popular running mate, former police captain Edman Lara, gained traction among working-class and rural voters, disillusioned with the rampant spending of the long-ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party but wary of Quiroga’s radical U-turn on his social protections.
Presidential candidate Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga hugs his running mate Juan Pablo Velasco (right), after early results showed they were trailing in the presidential runoff in La Paz, Bolivia, on Sunday.
Juan Karita/AP
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Juan Karita/AP
Quiroga’s embrace of the International Monetary Fund (an organization that has long stirred political resentment in Bolivia) for a shock treatment package of the kind Bolivians came to know and fear in the 1990s also alienated more moderate voters.
Paz’s victory puts this South American nation of 12 million people on a markedly uncertain path as it seeks to implement major changes for the first time since the 2005 election of Evo Morales, the founder of the MAS and Bolivia’s first indigenous president.
Although the Christian Democratic Peace Party has the cushion of a slim majority in Congress, it will still need to reach an agreement to push for ambitious reform.
Paz plans to end Bolivia’s fixed exchange rate, phase out generous fuel subsidies and reduce heavy public investment, redesigning much of the MAS economic model that dominated for two decades. But he says he will maintain MAS-style benefits and take a gradual approach to free-market reforms, hoping to avoid a sharp recession or a jump in inflation that would enrage the masses, as has happened before in Bolivia.
Morales’ effort to eliminate fuel subsidies in 2011 lasted less than a week as protests swept the country.
Paz inherits an economy in ruins
Paz supporters erupted in raucous cheers and ran into the streets of La Paz, setting off fireworks and honking car horns. Crowds packed a downtown hotel where Paz spoke, some shouting: “The people, united, will never be defeated!”
“We feel victorious,” Roger Carrillo, a Peace Party volunteer, said by phone from eastern Bolivia, where he was gathering a celebratory caravan. “We know we have work ahead of us, but we just want to enjoy this moment.”
Behind the celebrations, Bolivia faces an uphill battle.
Since 2023, the Andean nation has been crippled by a shortage of US dollars that has left Bolivians without their own savings and hampered imports. Year-on-year inflation soared to 23% last month, the highest rate since 1991. Fuel shortages paralyze the country, with motorists often waiting days in line to fill their tanks.
To get through even his first few months, Paz must replenish the country’s meager foreign exchange reserves and keep fuel imports flowing.
Vowing to avoid the IMF, Paz has pledged to raise the necessary cash by fighting corruption, reducing unnecessary spending and restoring enough confidence in the country’s currency to attract US dollar savings from under Bolivians’ mattresses and into the banking system.
But Paz’s stated reluctance to apply fiscal brakes – with promises of cash handouts to the poor to cushion the blow of subsidy cuts – has drawn criticism.
“He’s so lazy, I feel like he’s saying these things to please voters when fiscally they don’t add up,” said Rodrigo Tribeño, 48, who voted for Quiroga on Sunday. “We needed real change.”
An outsider with political experience
Although Paz, son of former President Jaime Paz Zamora, who was in office from 1989 to 1993, has spent more than two decades in politics as a legislator and mayor, he appeared in this race as a political unknown. The senator unexpectedly rose from the bottom of the polls to first place in the August vote.
His party swept six of the country’s nine regional departments, including the Andean highlands of western Bolivia and the vast coca-producing region of Cochabamba, winning over key swaths of indigenous Aymaras and working-class Bolivians who once formed Morales’ base.
Supporters of presidential candidate Rodrigo Paz celebrate after preliminary results showed him leading the second round of the presidential election in La Paz, Bolivia, on Sunday.
Iván Valencia/AP
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Iván Valencia/AP
Paz’s slogan of “capitalism for all” attracted many merchants and businessmen who flourished in Morales’ heyday but later chafed at his high taxes and regulations.
Quiroga, by contrast, dominated the richer eastern lowlands of Santa Cruz, known as the country’s agricultural engine.
“There is a very clear class difference. For Quiroga, there are people who have been in politics and in the economic elite for a long time: businessmen, agro-industrialists,” said Verónica Rocha, a Bolivian political analyst. “With Peace it is the opposite.”
A former police officer revolutionizes the career
The race seemed to be a serious matter until Paz surprised everyone by choosing Lara as his running mate. The charismatic young former police officer had no political experience but gained fame on TikTok after being fired from the police force for exposing corruption in viral videos.
Out of work, he sold second-hand clothes to survive and worked as a lawyer helping Bolivians expose corruption, a story that resonated with many former MAS supporters.
Lara’s ardent, populist promises of a universal income for women and higher pensions for retirees frequently forced Paz to do damage control, causing tension in the election campaign. But for those who see Lara as a divisive and hot-headed person, there are many Bolivians who say those traits connote authenticity compared to the other telegenic and hyphenated candidates.
Lara struck an unusually conciliatory tone in his comments after winning on Sunday.
“It’s time to unite, it’s time to reconcile,” Lara told his followers after learning of his victory, adopting a more conciliatory tone than usual. “The political divisions are over.”
Many Bolivians interviewed Sunday said they voted for Lara as if he were at the top of the list.
“Lara is the one who acts more like president than Paz. Many of us think that Lara will end up ruling the country,” said Wendy Cornejo, 28, a former Morales supporter who sells crackers in downtown La Paz.
