Polling stations close and vote counting begins in Bolivia
At four in the afternoon local time, the polling stations in Bolivia closed. The counting of the votes for the second round now begins.
The two presidential candidates, Rodrigo Paz and Jorge Tuto Quiroga, will await the result in the city of La Paz. The Electoral Tribunal expects to give the first percentages starting at eight at night.
Rodrigo Paz, who ran under the acronym of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC), voted early in the morning in Tarija (south), the city of which he was mayor. “These are very difficult times, but Bolivia has great opportunities to move forward,” he said, referring to the economic recession that is devastating the country with high inflation, lack of dollars and gasoline shortages. Paz said that he had already spoken with the parties in Parliament to, if he won, guarantee governability and advance the reforms he considers necessary. “With our bench we make a majority with any of the forces and not the other way around,” he said. The dart was for Quiroga, his rival from the Libre alliance.
The polls show that Paz captured the vote in the western part of the country, Andean and predominantly Aymara and Quechua, while Tuto Quiroga was unbeatable in the eastern and jungle part, with a Creole majority and linked to the agro-export industry. The former conservative president accompanied his 92-year-old father to a polling station in Cochabamba, the city where he was born 65 years ago, and then traveled by private plane to La Paz, where he voted. “I beg everyone to go out and vote. Take advantage of this window to change 20 years that were destructive. Now a bright future is coming,” he said to the swarm of journalists who approached him as he left school.
The great political tension that marked the campaign quickly died down during election day. The prohibition of circulation for any type of vehicle produces an emptying effect in large cities that highlights the peaceful nature that elections usually have in Bolivia. As the election was between only two candidates, the recount is expected to be quick. Both candidates anticipated that they will recognize the result, whatever it may be.
The discordant voice was that of Evo Morales, prevented by the Constitution from a new re-election and today a refugee in the coca-growing region of Chapare. There is an arrest warrant for alleged sexual abuse of minors. Morales voted, anyway, and said that neither Paz nor Tuto Quiroga represent “the people and the indigenous people.” That role is reserved for him.
