Bolivia elects centrist Paz as president, ending 2 decades of socialism

Bolivians voted on Sunday in an unprecedented presidential run-off between two conservative, capitalist candidates, ushering in a new political era after almost 20 years of one-party rule by the Movement Toward Socialism party.

Voters are choosing between former right-wing president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga and centrist Senator Rodrigo Paz as they look for a leader to lift them out of their country’s worst economic crisis in decades.

Since 2023, the Andean nation has been crippled by a shortage of US dollars that has locked Bolivians out of their own savings and hampered imports. Year-on-year inflation soared to 23 per cent last month, the highest rate since 1991. Fuel shortages paralyse the country.

Quiroga and Paz have vowed to break with the budget-busting populism that dominated Bolivia under the Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party founded by Evo Morales, a charismatic coca growers’ union leader who became Bolivia’s first indigenous president in 2006.

“We are living in a time of change and renewal,” Paz told supporters as he cast his ballot in his hometown of Tarija, alongside his father, former president Jaime Paz Zamora. “We are closing one cycle and opening another.”

The promise of change has energised some voters.