For the primary time in practically twenty years, Bolivia is on the precipice of a rightward shift.
Voters within the South American nation will go to the polls on August 17 to decide on the subsequent president, in addition to members of Congress.
However schisms inside Bolivia’s long-dominant left have opened the door to a attainable right-wing victory, with candidates like businessman Samuel Doria Medina and former President Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga main the race.
Bolivia has been unsettled by political and financial turmoil in recent times, together with excessive inflation and dwindling forex reserves.
That, in flip, has fuelled public dissatisfaction with the ruling Motion for Socialism (MAS) occasion, which has been in energy nearly constantly since 2006. Candidates like Medina and Quiroga are hoping to capitalise on that disillusionment to oust MAS from the presidency.
However tensions within the nation stay excessive, and polls present an in depth race that will not produce a transparent winner within the first spherical of voting.
Who’re the figures shaping the race, what points are high of thoughts for voters, and the way might this election form Bolivia? We reply these questions and extra on this explainer.
When is the election?
The primary spherical of voting will happen on Sunday, August 17.
Will there be a second spherical of voting?
Probably. To keep away from a run-off, the highest presidential candidate should both earn greater than 50 p.c of the vote or garner 40 p.c of the vote and have a 10-point lead over the second-place contender.
However that state of affairs is unlikely, given the tight race between candidates like Medina and Quiroga.
The presidential race is anticipated to proceed to a second spherical of voting on October 19.
Are there different races on the poll?
Sure. Along with voting for a president and vp, Bolivians will forged ballots for 36 Senate seats and 130 positions within the Chamber of Deputies.
Bolivia has a inhabitants of roughly 12 million, of which greater than seven million are eligible voters.
Who’re the primary presidential candidates?
A complete of 10 presidential candidates registered to race in Sunday’s election, however to date, no single contender has decisively damaged into the lead.
“That is the primary nationwide election in twenty years with no dominant occasion or a transparent frontrunner,” stated Glaeldys Gonzalez Calanche, an analyst with the Worldwide Disaster Group, a analysis nonprofit.
Two carefully watched candidates, nevertheless, are each conservatives who struggled to make an impression in previous elections.
They now seem to have a shot at success, a improvement that underscores the implosion of the once-formidable Bolivian left.
One of many candidates is a politician and businessman named Samuel Doria Medina. An entrepreneur who made his fortune in cement, Medina now owns inns and Burger King restaurant franchises in Bolivia.
Within the Nineties, he additionally served as a minister of planning below President Jaime Paz Zamora.
The founding father of the right-of-centre Nationwide Unity Entrance, Medina beforehand made three failed makes an attempt to run for president: in 2005, 2009 and 2014.
He possible faces his stiffest competitors from fellow also-ran, the right-wing Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga.
Like Medina, Quiroga has been a presidential candidate 3 times earlier than: in 2005, 2014 and 2020. However he briefly ascended to the presidency himself after being elected because the nation’s youngest vp in 1997.
He shared a ticket on the time with the nation’s former navy dictator Hugo Banzer, whose authorities within the Seventies was related to abuses similar to torture and enforced disappearances.
As president, Banzer determined to depart workplace in 2001 after he was recognized with lung most cancers, and Quiroga served the ultimate 12 months of Banzer’s time period.
Are there any contenders on the left?
Sure, however they haven’t been polling as strongly as their conservative counterparts.
Andronico Rodriguez is the main left-wing candidate, operating as an impartial. The president of the Senate, Rodriguez boasts roots in Bolivia’s rural coca-growing areas, which are usually strongholds for the governing MAS occasion.
Rodriguez, nevertheless, break up from the MAS occasion this 12 months as Bolivia’s leftist coalition fractured.
Outgoing president and MAS member Luis Arce has been blamed for Bolivia’s slumping economic system, and MAS founder Evo Morales has been locked in a feud with each Arce and Rodriguez as he seeks to regain the presidency himself.
The official MAS candidate within the 2025 election, former minister Eduardo del Castillo, has barely made a ripple within the polls.
What do the polls say?
A ballot aggregator compiled by the Americas Society/Council of the Americas exhibits conservatives Samuel Doria Medina and Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga vying for the lead.
However the polls be aware {that a} important variety of voters are both undecided or intent upon casting null votes, including a wild-card aspect to Sunday’s race.
Three polls taken between early June and late July present Medina within the lead, with between 19.6 and 24.5 p.c help.
Quiroga, in the meantime, garnered between 16.6 p.c and 22.9 p.c within the polls.
And Andronico Rodriguez, the left-wing candidate, earned between 6 p.c and 13.7 p.c help among the many survey respondents.
What points are high of thoughts for voters?
The nation’s financial turbulence and price of dwelling disaster are among the many highest-profile points for voters this election cycle.
“Bolivia is experiencing its worst financial disaster in a era,” stated Gonzalez Calanche, the analyst with the Worldwide Disaster Group.
She identified that the nationwide forex has misplaced greater than half of its worth. Whereas Bolivia has huge shops of pure gasoline and oil, its manufacturing has tumbled, resulting in an financial shortfall.
The nation has been compelled to import gas fairly than exporting it amid shortages.
A survey in Could discovered that voters recognized rising costs as their high concern, adopted by different financial points similar to gas shortages, shrinking greenback reserves and unemployment.
Why isn’t the present president operating?
President Luis Arce announced in Could that he wouldn’t search re-election, because the nation’s financial disaster and a feud with former mentor Evo Morales despatched his reputation plummeting.
The ultimate months of Arce’s five-year time period have been outlined largely by tumult. In 2023 and 2024, the nation noticed its forex reserves shrink, and its pure gasoline business suffered.
Morales, in the meantime, started to place himself as a critic of Arce’s authorities. Beneath Arce’s management, Bolivia’s judicial system barred Morales from searching for a fourth time period as president, and an arrest warrant was issued towards Morales for statutory rape.
Tensions rose in June 2024, when a common stormed the presidential palace and appeared to try a coup d’etat. Arce blamed Morales’s supporters, and Morales claimed Arce had staged the coup to rescue his reputation.
What position is Evo Morales enjoying?
Bolivia’s election is notable for the absence of one of many nation’s most influential figures: MAS founder Evo Morales.
As a three-term president from 2006 till 2019, Morales oversaw a interval of considerable financial development that made him well-liked in Bolivia and throughout the Latin American left.
However in 2019, Morales sought a controversial fourth time period in workplace. Although official outcomes confirmed he gained, protests, threats and claims of vote tampering compelled Morales to depart the nation.
Some have described his exile as a coup, pushed by the navy and the political proper.
When Arce, his former finance minister, was elected president in 2020, Morales was in a position to return to Bolivia.
However the two leaders have fallen out, partly on account of their rivalry for the presidency, and Morales has rallied his supporters to his aspect in a break up that has fractured the Bolivian left.
In Could, a constitutional courtroom upheld a ruling that Morales couldn’t run once more, as a consequence of time period limits imposed since he left workplace.
However Morales has continued to press for a fourth time period in workplace, and he has urged his supporters to forged null ballots to protest Sunday’s election.
Polls estimate the mixed variety of undecided voters and protest votes might quantity to between 25 and 34 p.c of voters.
Morales’s supporters have additionally led demonstrations in protest of the previous president’s exclusion from the election. Some have blocked roads. Others have erupted into clashes that left police and protesters useless.
How lengthy is a presidential time period?
Presidents are elected in Bolivia for a time period of 5 years. Lately, the nation’s courts have restricted presidents to 2 consecutive phrases in workplace.
This has been a supply of consternation for Morales, who served three consecutive phrases and hopes to achieve a fourth.
Why is that this election vital?
Bolivia’s left is probably going on monitor for its first defeat in a presidential race in practically twenty years. That may ship shockwaves all through Latin America, the place Bolivia has been a left-wing stronghold for a lot of the twenty first century.
“The left has been weakened by schisms and private disputes between Morales and Arce,” analyst Gonzalez Calanche stated.
She defined that these schisms can be mirrored within the poll field, as commerce unions and different left-leaning organisations wrestle to unite behind a candidate.
With tensions high, financial circumstances deteriorating, and no consensus candidate to steer the nation, Gonzalez Calanche fears Bolivia could possibly be heading right into a interval of uncertainty because it approaches a attainable second spherical of voting.
“There’s a really dire financial state of affairs, made worse by social and political unrest,” she stated. “It’s a cycle that continues to feed itself.”
