Early results showed centrist Rodrigo Paz take the lead, with 32.8 percent of the vote, in surprise outcome.
Bolivia is heading to a presidential run-off between a centrist and right-wing candidate, confirming the end of two decades of government by the Movement for Socialism (MAS), according to the South American country’s electoral council.
With more than 91 percent of the ballots counted on Sunday night, preliminary results showed centrist Rodrigo Paz of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) in the lead, with 32.8 percent of the vote.
Conservative former interim President Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, of the Alianza Libre coalition, was in second place, with 26.4 percent of the vote, meaning he will face Paz, the son of former left-leaning President Jaime Paz, in a run-off election on October 19.
Candidates needed to surpass 50 percent, or 40 percent with a 10-point margin of victory, to avoid a run-off.
Al Jazeera’s Latin America editor Lucia Newman, reporting from Bolivia’s Santa Cruz de la Sierra, said the early results confirmed that MAS, which has governed the country since 2005, is “out of the picture”.
But the “biggest surprise”, Newman said, is “that the frontrunner is none other than somebody who was polling between fourth and fifth place up until now”.
Paz is “more to the centre” than his father, Newman added.
Eight presidential candidates were in the running in Sunday’s presidential election – from the far-right to the political left.
Pre-election polls had shown Samuel Doria Medina, a wealthy businessman and former planning minister, as one of two frontrunners alongside Quiroga, who served as interim president and vice president under former military leader President Hugo Banzer.
Former leftist President Evo Morales was barred from running, and the outgoing socialist President Luis Arce, who had fallen out with Morales, opted out of the race.
The division within their leftist coalition, along with the country’s deep economic crisis, meant few expected MAS to return to power.
Official results are due within seven days. Voters will also elect all 26 senators and 130 deputies, and officials assume office on November 8.
Electoral workers count votes during the general election for president and members of Congress, in Santa Cruz, Bolivia on Sunday [Ipa Ibanez/Reuters]
Spiralling inflation
The Andean country has been struggling through its worst economic crisis in a generation, marked by annual inflation of almost 25 percent and critical shortages of US dollars and fuel.
Bolivians repeatedly took to the streets to protest rocketing prices and hours-long waits for fuel, bread and other basics in the lead-up to Sunday’s election.
Bolivia enjoyed more than a decade of strong growth and Indigenous upliftment under Morales, who nationalised the gas sector and ploughed the proceeds into social programmes that halved extreme poverty during his stint in power between 2006 and 2019.
But a lack of new gas projects under Morales, who was outspoken on environmental issues and climate change, has seen gas revenues plummet from a peak of $6.1bn in 2013 to $1.6bn last year.
With the country’s other major resource, lithium, still underground, the government has nearly run out of the foreign exchange needed to import fuel, wheat and other foodstuffs.