La Paz: Polls opened in Bolivia for presidential and congressional elections that could spell the end of the Andean nation’s long-dominant leftist party and see a right-wing government elected for the first time in over two decades.
The election on Sunday is one of the most consequential for Bolivia in recent times — and one of the most unpredictable.
Even at this late stage, a remarkable 30 per cent or so of voters remain undecided. Polls show the two leading right-wing candidates, multimillionaire business owner Samuel Doria Medina and former President Jorge Fernando “Tuto” Quiroga, locked in a virtual dead heat.
Many undecided voters
But a right-wing victory isn’t assured. Many longtime voters for the governing Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party, now shattered by infighting, live in rural areas and tend to be undercounted in polling. The nation’s worst economic crisis in four decades leaving Bolivians waiting for hours in fuel lines, struggling to find subsidised bread and squeezed by double-digit inflation.agencies