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Despite the fact that only 20 percent of the votes are officially counted, the MAS Socialist Party has declared victory. Official results are not expected until Wednesday at the earliest.
Polls on Election Day show that Arce has received more than 50 percent of the vote, while former President Carlos Mes has received 31 percent. Three other candidates are far behind.
The acting president of the Conservative Party, Jeanine Áñez, congratulated Arce.
– I congratulate the winner and ask them to think about Bolivia and our democracy when they govern, he writes on Twitter on Monday.
Sunday’s elections were an attempt to restore democracy in the country, and the 136 seats in the National Assembly were also available for elections. The MAS Socialist Party is expected to achieve a clear victory here as well.
Morales travels home
– We have recovered our democracy, said former President Morales in a brief comment from his exile in Argentina.
He has announced that he plans to return to Bolivia from his exile in Argentina. He fled there after the right wing accused him of electoral fraud and put the police and the army on the team. By the time he fled, several of his supporters had died in protests.
– Sooner or later we will return to Bolivia. There is nothing to discuss, Morales said at a press conference in Buenos Aires on Monday.
A large part of the inhabitants of Bolivia belong to the country’s indigenous population, and here the Socialist Party has strong support. When Morales was elected president in 2006, it was the first time the country had a leader who himself belonged to the indigenous people.
– Government of unity
Arce has called for calm and says he will try to form a government of national unity.
Before the election, opinion polls showed that Arce was likely to win, but he was not expected to get enough votes to prevent a decisive new election in November. To win after a single round, a candidate must obtain more than 50 percent of the vote or at least 40 percent and at the same time have an advantage of at least 10 percentage points ahead of the next candidate.
Arce was Minister of Finance in the Morales government for more than ten years, during which he ensured economic growth and social equality. Many poor people got better living conditions. This time it will face much bigger challenges, analysts believe.
Bolivia’s new government and National Assembly will face an enormous task in a divided country, devastated by Covid-19 and besieged by institutions plagued with weaknesses, the US human rights organization Washington Office of Latin America writes in a comment.
Long lines
Despite a tense and polarizing election campaign, the election was conducted peacefully. Long lines were reported at many polling stations as the country’s more than 7 million eligible voters went to the polls, even though Bolivia has been hit hard by the pandemic.
There have been fears that the outcome of the elections will trigger riots and riots.
– We must be patient with the outcome of the elections without resorting to any form of violence, said Jeanine Áñez previously. -I guarantee that we will obtain a reliable result, he added.
Áñez, who was a conservative senator when she was named to replace Morales, withdrew from the election campaign earlier this year.
