LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — One candidate is Rodrigo Paz, a conservative centrist senator and son of a neoliberal ex-president who is pitching himself as a moderate reformer.
The other is former right-wing president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, galvanizing voters through promises of harsh austerity and a scorched-earth approach to transforming Bolivia’s state-directed economic model after 20 years of leftist dominance.
At stake in the outcome of Bolivia’s consequential presidential election is the fate of one of South America’s most resource-rich nations, where inflation has soared to heights unseen in decades and polls show growing distrust in major institutions.
“There has been a paradigm shift,” said Bolivian sociologist Renzo Abruzzese. “What is truly historic is that the old cycle is over. It has carried away classical leftist thinking that dominated much of the 20th century.”
The shadow of unrest among the fervent supporters of charismatic ex-President Evo Morales, founder of Bolivia’s long-dominant Movement Toward Socialism party, or MAS, hangs over the next weeks of campaigning until the men face off in an unprecedented runoff on Oct. 19.
Front-runner Rodrigo Paz surprises
Screenshots of the Wikipedia entry for Paz’s past political allegiances elicited waggish mockery on Bolivian social media about the fluid ideology of this former mayor and governor.
Paz began his political career in the Revolutionary Left Movement of his father, former President Jaime Paz Zamora. His movement emerged as a radical Marxist-inspired party and suffered brutal repression under Bolivia’s 1964-1982 military dictatorship. Paz was born in exile in Spain.
But his father pivoted right as a pact with former dictator Hugo Bánzer vaulted him to the presidency in 1989.
The younger Paz rose through the political ranks over the past two decades in opposition to Morales’ platform of generous subsidies and hefty public investment.
He joined Quiroga’s right-wing party before gradually edging toward Bolivia’s technocratic center.
Analysts say his enigmatic pragmatism served Paz in Sunday’s election, as it did his father before him.
“Voters don’t want hard right or hard left. They want things to function,” said Veronica Rocha, a Bolivian political analyst. “Ambivalence is a political asset right now.”
Even his supporters aren’t sure how to describe his ideology.
“I don’t care about politics, I’m sick of it, I just support the candidate who I think will steal the least,” Emma Gesea Mamani, 57, said from her kiosk, selling snacks to hungry truckers wasting their days in lines for diesel as a result of Bolivia’s crippling fuel shortages.
Jorge ‘Tuto’ Quiroga promises spending cuts
A former vice president, Quiroga briefly held the presidency after then-President and ex-dictator Bánzer retired for health reasons in 2001.
Fluent in English and educated at Texas A&M University, Quiroga has fashioned himself into a pro-business modernizer vowing to save Bolivia from what he calls “20 lost years” under the MAS party. He pledges drastic spending cuts, a bailout from the International Monetary Fund and fire sales of Bolivia’s inefficient state-run firms.
After years of Bolivia’s foreign policy alignment with China and Russia, Quiroga vows to restore relations with the United States and claims to be close with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“For years we lived in a time of darkness and lack of opportunities like Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua,” said 60-year-old engineer Jimmy Copa Vargas. “With Tuto’s government, we’ll open ourselves to the world.”
Quiroga has run for president three times before, losing twice to Morales. Now 65, he hopes the fourth time’s the charm.
To attract young voters, Quiroga staged flashy concerts and named a wealthy young entrepreneur as his vice president.
He appears in campaign posters wearing a stern expression, tailored suit and Apple Watch and often peppers his speeches with wonky macroeconomic data, fueling the perception among some Bolivians that he’s out of touch with the rural poor in this majority-Indigenous nation.
“I can’t trust that he’s not going to be the first one out on a lifeboat when Bolivia starts sinking,” said Luis Quispe, a 38-year-old taxi driver.
Paz’s unusual campaign — and running mate
Paz went from polling near the bottom of the eight-candidate field to commanding over 32% of the vote on Sunday, stunning the country.
He and his popular running mate, former police captain Edman Lara, crisscrossed Bolivian cities holding modest rallies filled with cheap beer and grilled meat, often recording videos to post on TikTok.
Despite undergoing emergency knee surgery earlier in the year, Paz hit dozens of stops in the traditional bastions of Morales’ party, engaging with voters at once desperate for change but wary of a dramatic lurch to the right.
He has rejected an IMF bailout and proposed “capitalism for all,” touting accessible loans to boost young entrepreneurs and tax breaks to stimulate the formal economy.
“Rodrigo stands in the center, a refreshed version of social democracy,” said Bolivian analyst and former lawmaker Carlos Borth. “Meanwhile, Tuto has been marked as the radical right. That contrast matters.”
Many see Paz’s running mate, ex-police captain Lara, known here as El Capitán, as the driving force behind his win.
After 15 years in the police force, Lara in 2023 gained national prominence by posting tales of police corruption to his followers on TikTok and Instagram. His videos went viral, becoming must-see dispatches for disgruntled Bolivians and social media-savvy youth who tuned in regularly to watch him talk to the camera.
He faced disciplinary measures over the exposés and was fired from the force, solidifying his status as something of a folk hero. After his dismissal, he struggled to scrape by selling secondhand clothing. His wife drove for a ride-hailing app.
That has resonated with many workers in Bolivia’s vast informal economy who have watched politicians enrich themselves while their own finances collapse and the country’s economy spirals.
The election may not mean the end for Evo Morales
Sunday’s presidential election was the first since 2002 without Morales or a stand-in on the ballot.
Yet the outcome confirmed the maverick ex-union leader’s enduring influence. He transformed Bolivia over three straight terms marked by economic prosperity and political stability until his 2019 disputed reelection and subsequent ouster.
Disqualified from the race by a court ruling on term limits, Morales called on his followers to spoil their ballots against what he deemed an illegitimate election.
He campaigned hard for null votes nationwide, often attacking his leftist rivals — Eduardo Del Castillo, nominated by the unpopular President Luis Arce, and Senate leader Andrónico Rodríguez, a former protégé and coca farming union activist — more than the right-wing opposition.
While Sunday’s elections swept aside the MAS party’s splintered factions, the null-and-void vote captured third place.
Spoiled ballots appealed to nostalgic Morales supporters who fault Arce for Bolivia’s economic collapse and to voters disillusioned by politicians across the spectrum who they say are more focused more on their own power games than on the people they are supposed to serve.
“Those who say Evo Morales is finished are mistaken,” Abruzzese said. “Morales and MAS won’t just disappear.”
___
Associated Press writer Carlos Valdez in La Paz, Bolivia, contributed to this report.
