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Bolivia heads to presidential runoff after no candidate emerged clear winner

Iran Press TV

Monday, 18 August 2025 7:51 PM

Bolivia's presidential election will proceed to a runoff after no candidate met the electoral thresholds required to avoid a second round.

Bolivia's Supreme Electoral Tribunal announced on Monday that no candidate secured the required majority in the first round.

The preliminary results showed that Rodrigo Paz Pereira, the candidate of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC), and Jorge Quiroga, the former president and candidate of the Alianza Libre coalition, ranked first and second among the eight candidates.

With over 91% of the ballots counted on Sunday, Paz received 32.8% of the votes cast while Quiroga secured 26.4%.

Candidates needed to surpass 50%, or 40% with a 10-point margin of victory, to avoid a runoff.

Bolivia is expected to hold the second round, its first presidential runoff since its 1982 return to democracy on October 19.

Nearly 7.94 million voters nationwide cast their ballots to elect a new president and parliament, along with a vice president, 36 senators, 130 members of the lower house, and nine representatives to transnational parliamentary bodies.

The election came six years after charismatic ex-President Evo Morales' departure from office.

Bolivia is engulfed in an economic crisis, triggered by inflation, low currency reserves and the collapse of its natural gas industry.

Polls indicate a surge in support for right-wing candidates and a decline of the left.

It's a stark reversal for Bolivia's Movement for Socialism (MAS) which has governed the country for much of the past 20 years.

Morales, the former coca farmer turned three-term president, had repeatedly warned against the US meddling in his country's internal affairs.

The US has had a long history of invading, meddling, supporting coups and offering clandestine support to violent non-state actors in the Latin America region.

Barred from running for a fourth term as president, Morales had instead encouraged his supporters to cast null votes during Sunday's election in protest.

Morales has managed to retain a devoted following, and some of his supporters have threatened to obstruct the vote through roadblocks and demonstrations.

Their slogan is, "Without Evo, there are no elections."

Bolivia enjoyed more than a decade of strong growth and indigenous upliftment under Morales, who nationalized the gas sector and used the proceeds for social programs that halved extreme poverty during his stint in power between 2006 and 2019.