Bolivia Elects a New President Today, August 17th
with right-wing candidates as favorites
HAVANA TIMES – Bolivia may leave behind two decades of leftist governments, as the favorites heading into the first round of the presidential election this Sunday, the 17th, are two right-wing opposition figures: businessman Samuel Doria Medina and former president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga.
Trailing them are candidates such as the president of the Chamber of Senators, Andronico Rodriguez, a dissident from the ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party, and the MAS’s official candidate, former presidential minister Eduardo del Castillo, who lags far behind in the polls, reflecting the government’s wear and tear.
Current president Luis Arce decided not to seek reelection, and MAS’s historic leader, Evo Morales—who governed for several consecutive terms between 2006 and 2019—was disqualified and unable to register to run for president.
Morales has called for casting null votes in protest of his disqualification. With a high percentage of undecided voters and very low polling numbers for all candidates, a second-round runoff on October 19 is already considered a certainty.
The only woman registered to run for president, Eva Copa, also from MAS ranks and the mayor of El Alto (part of the metropolitan area of La Paz), withdrew her candidacy in July after denouncing defamation and “political harassment” against her and her supporters.
Alongside the president, voters also elect the vice-presidential running mate. Additionally, the 7.9 million registered voters will choose 36 senators and 120 deputies for the Plurinational Legislative Assembly in this country of 12 million inhabitants. All for the 2025–2030 term.
The election takes place amid an economic crisis marked by inflation (24.8% year-on-year in July, the highest since 2008), a shortage of dollars, and depleted international reserves, with the government importing fuel at a high cost to sell it at subsidized prices.
This crisis, along with exhaustion and infighting within MAS and among the social movements that supported the leftist force for years, paved the way for the resurgence of right-wing figures—even though the opposition has also failed to unite behind a single option.
According to the latest polls, Doria Medina of the Unidad Alliance leads with 21.2% in Ipsos Ciesmori and 21.6% in Captura Consulting, while Quiroga, of the Libre coalition, garners 20% in both surveys.
However, pollster Spie SRL gave Quiroga 24.45% of voter preference and Doria Medina 23.64%, confirming a technical tie between the two candidates and pointing toward a runoff. To win outright in the first round, a candidate must secure more than 50% of the vote, or at least 40% with a 10-point lead over the nearest rival.
Doria Medina, 66, is a wealthy businessman in the commerce, cement, and construction sectors who defines himself as a “center social democrat.”. He has previously sought the presidency.
His main promise, with the slogan “in 100 days, dammit”, is to quickly resolve the shortage of dollars and fuel supplies through public spending cuts, external financing negotiations, and boosting exports.
Quiroga, 65, has also sought the presidency several times without success. He held the office briefly from 2001 to 2002, when President Hugo Banzer, of whom he was vice president, resigned due to health problems.
A relentless critic of leftist governments in Latin America, Quiroga’s political and economic conservatism, which kept him out of favor with the electorate for over two decades, has now given him tailwinds in the current context.
If polls prove accurate, Bolivia is heading for a runoff between these two right-wing contenders.
Spie placed Rodrigo Paz, of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC), in third place with 9.10% support, followed by the mayor of Cochabamba, Manfred Reyes Villa (right-wing), of the Súmate group, with 8.79%.
The leftist Rodríguez, of the Popular Alliance, would receive 8.46%, according to that poll, while the ruling party’s Del Castillo polls below two percent—signals of the collapse of the left, whose strongholds have long been indigenous, miners’, and coca-growers’ movements that followed Morales for decades.
Polls show that, even just a week before the elections, about 14% of voters remained undecided, and the intention to vote null or blank ranged between 15% and 19%, seen as evidence of rejection and disillusionment among the electorate.
To display his political strength, Morales is riding that wave by calling for null votes and argues that if null votes outnumber those of the leading candidate, the election should be annulled.
Electoral authorities have dismissed that possibility, reiterating that only valid votes count toward the election results.
With Morales’ militant rhetoric and Arce’s more measured tone, Bolivia was part—from 2006 until today, with the exception of the 2019 coup that placed Jeanine Añez in the presidency for a year—of the wave of leftist governments that flourished in Latin America at the start of the century.
Now the pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction, and the country could join the group of right-wing governments that have gained ground since the mid-2020s.