“We will change everything, absolutely everything.” Decisive elections in Bolivia after 20 years of socialist government
Finding in a serious economic crisis, the Bolivians choose their future president on Sunday in an election in which the right seems to be able to put an end to the political cycle started twenty years ago by the former socialist president Evo Morales, AFP reports.
This country in Andes, with a population of 11.3 million inhabitants, presents itself with tired ballot boxes and fuels, a consequence of a crisis economy, and with eyes on prices. Annual inflation is approaching 25%, a record of the last 17 years.
Considered responsible for this situation, the President in the exercise of Luis Arce, supported by Evo Morales, but now in conflict with him, has given up for a second term.
Andronico Rodriguez, the president of the Senate, also on the left, and Eduardo del Castillo, the candidate of the movement for socialism (MAS), in power since 2006, are far behind polls.
“People have realized that the last twenty years have served nothing,” says Miguel Angel Miranda, a 21-year-old student from La Paz. “The socialist model did not work,” he estimates.
Two right -wing candidates are fighting for the first place
In this context, two right-wing candidates, among the eight in the race, are fighting for the first place: the center-right million Doria Medina, aged 66, and the former right president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, aged 65.
The latest polls credited the first with 21% and the second with 20%, compared to 5.5% for Andronico Rodriguez and 1.5% for Eduardo del Castillo.
If there will be no surprises, the two favorites will meet in the second round, on October 19, in an unprecedented confrontation in the right camp.
“The party is over”
They both promise to break with the state model established by Evo Morales, a prominent figure of the Latin-American left. Under his presidency (2006-2019), poverty has decreased and the GDP has been tripled, but the decrease of natural gas income from 2017 has thrown the country into crisis.
“We will change everything, absolutely everything. It has been twenty years of waste,” said “Tuto” Quiroga, a 65-year-old engineer who provided the interim to lead the country for one year (2001-2002).
“It will be a austerity government, the party is over,” promised Doria Medina, an influential businessman from La Paz, considered more moderate than his opponent.
The left is preparing for a great defeat
The left could suffer the worst electoral defeat since Evo Morales came to power. Former 65-year-old Native American head of years hoped to run for a fourth presidential term, but justice, limiting them to two, eliminated from the race.
Tarked by an arrest warrant in a minor traffic case, the former trade unionist of Coca cultivators is now withdrawn in his FIF in the center of the country.
Despite its removal, the first head of Bolivian state of indigenous origin, however, retains solid support in certain rural and local bastions and threatens that it will mobilize its supporters if the right will win.
“We will not legitimize these tricked choices,” he told AFP.
For Daniel Valverde, a political scientist at Gabriel René Moreno University, “the biggest enemy of the left was the left”. “Corruption, poor management, lack of decisions and improvisation have ended by tired the population,” he believes.
“Things are going stupid, there is no gasoline, diesel, gas,” complains Saturnina Sahuira, a 47 -year -old traveling seller from La Paz. Accompanied by his five children, this Aymara woman, long -standing to the Party in power, is an example for the disappointment of a population that has been benefiting from twenty -year -old social policies.
In addition to the president and vice-president, the almost eight million voters of the country must also choose the members of the Bicameral Parliament.
