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The candidate for the presidency, Luis Arce
AP Photo / Juan Karita
Almost a year after the overthrow and self-exile of former Bolivian President Evo Morales, which was preceded by a regular internal coup, some 7.3 million Bolivian voters returned to the polls to elect a new president in the highly polarized country.
The socialist presidential candidate, former Economy Minister Luis Arce, is on his way to winning elections from the first round without having to run for a second, according to an unofficial quick vote count.
A quick count by the Ciesmori Institute, broadcast by the Bolivian television network Unitel, places Arsé at 52.4% of the votes, compared to 31.5% for former central president Carlos Mesa.
The official results
Yesterday Sunday the curtain fell on the presidential and parliamentary elections in the Latin American country. Ballot counting will take time to complete with a possible day for the announcement of final results on Wednesday.
Large lines of voters formed in the polling stations who rushed to exercise their right to vote.
The Electoral Commission, the supreme court of elections, announced last Saturday that the preliminary results will not be made public on Sunday night, since in last year’s elections the initial results were the occasion for violent incidents to break out.
As of today, it is believed that MAS presidential candidate Luis Arce, former Minister of Economy and architect of the Bolivian economic “miracle”, is heading towards victory over current former president Carlos Mesa, who hoped to obtain the votes of his followers. Anies, who withdrew from the race so that “Morales would not return.”
If the unofficial count is verified, the party of former President Evo Morales will return to power.
According to the Constitution of the Andean country, to prevail from the first round, a candidate must collect more than 50% of the votes or at least 40% and be 10 percentage points different from his closest opponent.
Morales asked that the result be respected and stressed that his party has its own independent mechanism to verify it, according to the newspaper Pagina Siete.
Observers believe Arce’s possible victory will pave the way for Morales, whom the transitional government wants to arrest for accusing him of “terrorism,” return from Argentina, where he was granted asylum and from where he played central. role in the MAS election campaign.
OAK observers confirmed that yesterday’s elections were held in a calm atmosphere, according to Bolivian news agency ABI.
