Rodrigo Paz and Tuto Quiroga will compete for the Bolivian presidency in October

The result of the presidential elections held Sunday in Bolivia could scarcely have been more surprising. Like a marathon runner attacking the field in the final push, the Christian Democratic Party candidate, Rodrigo Paz Pereira, son of former president Jaime Paz Zamora — considered by many to not even be an option to consider in political analysis — won the first round with 32% of the vote. On October 19, he will compete for the presidency against an old acquaintance of Bolivians, former president Jorge Tuto Quiroga, a representative of the most radical wing of the right, who came in second in the final count with 27%.

The result eliminated the liberal Samuel Doria Medina, who was making his fourth attempt and leading the polls until election day. He ultimately obtained only 20% of the vote. Doria Medina was quick to concede defeat and supported Paz in the runoff. Andrónico Rodríguez, the leftist candidate who had hoped to attract the votes of Evo Morales supporters — the former president had been barred from running by the Constitutional Court for having been reelected twice — had to settle for fourth place, with 8% of the vote.

The winner of the first round of the Bolivian elections was born in Santiago de Compostela 57 years ago, during his father’s exile in Spain during the Bolivian dictatorship. He began the campaign with 2% support under the acronym of the Christian Democratic Party. His rise was swift. Paz managed to attract, against all odds, part of the historic Movement for Socialism (MAS) vote and also part of the long-standing conservative political movement represented by Tuto Quiroga, Doria Medina, and the rest of the candidates. His running mate, Edmand Lara, is a former police officer active on social media and popular for denouncing corruption cases within the force he served on.

Paz quietly found the formula for success by presenting himself as the face of change, far removed from extremes. “We are the voice of those who didn’t appear in the polls, who had no voice, of a Bolivia that no one took into account and now has a voice,” he said in his triumphant speech. Surrounded by his supporters, he closed the speech with chants of “renewal, renewal, damn it!” If he manages to convince the voters of Doria Medina and Andrónico Rodríguez, he will have the presidency in the palm of his hand in the October runoff.

Bolivia is entering a new political era after 20 years of governments under Evo Morales’ MAS grouping. The coca grower leader was a candidate despite being barred and faces allegations of rape and has an arrest warrant in his name that has not been enforced. On Sunday, he voted early in Lauca Ñ (Chapare), escorted by a 150-strong security detail protecting him from the police. The Indigenous leader remained active on social media. “If it weren’t for Luis Arce, we would have won these elections!” he wrote, once again focusing his attacks on the president, whom he accuses of banning him and stealing the MAS acronym.

Morales campaigned on the null vote and did well. Nineteen percent of Bolivians — nearly 1.2 million voters — obeyed his order, a force he will undoubtedly try to leverage in the future, where he will remain a significant player but outside the institutions.

The fight between Morales and Arce for control of the left and the Indigenous and peasant movements ended up exhausting both parties. MAS, appropriated by Arce, obtained 3.15% of the vote, the minimum needed to save the party. The rest of the left hoped that the votes of the disenchanted would go to Andrónico Rodríguez, once Morales’s heir apparent, but among those now considered traitors after he decided to run. It was a miscalculation. They ended up mostly in the hands of a hidden figure, Rodrigo Paz Pereira.

The second round battle began on election night itself. Tuto Quiroga proclaimed to his supporters that Bolivia would now be “free forever and ever.” He then congratulated his rivals one by one, in a carefully crafted strategy of seduction. Doria Medina, third in the race, had already announced that he would back Paz.

The former president, who is running for a fourth term, will have to work hard to woo the center if he hopes to make a comeback in the second round. He carries the burden of having served as vice president during the democratic process of military coup leader Hugo Bánzer Suárez in 1997. And his political brand is a marked rejection of MAS and its leader, Morales, something he did not forget on Sunday. “The country can be changed with the power of the vote, against blockades and sabotage,” he said, referring to the traditional methods of union struggle.

The election has left the name of the new president undefined, but it has already shaped parliament, until now controlled by MAS. The result is a snapshot of the left’s debacle. In the Chamber of Deputies, MAS has so far secured only one out of 130 seats. In the Senate, of the 21 seats it put up for grabs, it has not renewed any and has been left without representation. The largest minority in the upper house will be Rodrigo Paz’s Christian Democratic Party, with 15 seats, followed by Tuto Quiroga’s Free Alliance with 12 representatives. Andrónico Rodríguez’s left-wing party is excluded.

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