People in Bolivia are headed to the polls to elect the next president as well as the members of the Congress, with the governing socialists expected to lose power after almost 20 years due to a deep economic crisis and division within the leftist coalition.
Ballot stations opened on Sunday at 8am (12:00 GMT) and will close at 4pm (20:00 GMT), with initial results expected after 9pm (01:00 GMT on Monday).
The election is also the first time in almost two decades that polling indicates Bolivia’s incumbent Movement for Socialism, or MAS, could face defeat. MAS-affiliated and other left-leaning candidates trail the right-wing opposition by about 10 percent, according to the latest August Ipsos MORI survey.
Eight presidential candidates are in the running – from the far-right to the political left. But two candidates appear to have a comfortable lead: Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, who served as interim president and vice president under former military ruler Hugo Banzer, and Samuel Doria Mediana, a wealthy businessman and former planning minister.
Medina, 66, and Quiroga, 65, are neck-and-neck, according to the polling survey.
Former leftist President Evo Morales has been barred from running, and the outgoing socialist President Luis Arce, who had fallen out with Morales, opted out of the race.
Eduardo del Castillo, who is backed by outgoing President Arce, is the official MAS party candidate. Andronico Rodriguez, who has distanced himself from the MAS party, is running as an independent.
Morales, Bolivia’s undisputed left-wing leader for the last 15 years, is holed up in his tropical stronghold, where he still leads the coca growers union. He has asked his followers to cast invalid votes.
“Brothers, we are on the right track. Absenteeism, blank ballots, undecided voters, all of it,” Morales told Radio Kawsachun Coca, his media outlet in the Bolivian jungle of Chapare, where he has been holed up for months among fiercely loyal coca-growing labour unions.
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