MAS wins Bolivian elections, according to first projections

It was one o'clock in the morning in Bolivia, seven o'clock in Spain, when candidate for presidential elections, Luis Arce, from the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), appeared to celebrate the results of Sunday's elections. 

"We have recovered democracy and we have recovered hope," Arce said in his appearance. "We are going to build unity," said former Finance Minister for most of the 14 years Evo Morales has been in power. 

After midnight and under pressure from politicians and citizens, it was known that the Ciesmori poll for the television channels Unitel and Bolivision gave 52.4% of the votes to former Minister Arce. Next would be Carlos Mesa of the Citizen Community with 31.5%, followed by Luis Fernando Camacho of Creemos with 14.1%.

Arce, who celebrated his victory in La Paz, obtained over 40%, which does not make a second round necessary.

“We do not yet have an official count, but from the data we have, Mr. Arce and Mr. Choquehuanca have won the election. I congratulate the winners and ask them to govern with Bolivia and democracy in mind”, wrote Jeanine Añez, the interim president for a year.  

The president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), Salvador Romero, stressed that the voting day ended in a “peaceful and participatory” manner, which was what the country needed “to strengthen its democracy.”

The election, twice postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, was the first in 20 years not to feature Morales, the country's first indigenous leader. "We have returned millions, now we are going to return dignity and freedom to the people," Morales tweeted.

The South American country went to the polls to repeat elections as they were annulled a year ago due to fraud. Past elections on 20 October 2019 plunged Bolivia into a political crisis. That day Evo Morales was seeking a fourth term, but the situation was different from previous elections: for the first time since 2006 there was the possibility of reaching a second round with candidate Carlos Mesa. During the quick count, the Transmission of Preliminary Election Results (TREP) was cut when the difference between the two candidates was seven points in favour of the indigenous leader, with 83% of the minutes counted. It was not until 24 hours later that the TREP was completed and gave, narrowly, a victory to Morales.

These events led to accusations of fraud and a violent social outburst that triggered Morales's resignation from the presidency, denouncing that he was the victim of a coup d'état, leaving the country with a power vacuum, until Jeanine Añez took over the government on an interim basis two days later.  

It should be remembered that Morales came to this election with his legitimacy somewhat eroded after his defeat by referendum on 21 February 2016, when his proposal for a change in the Constitution to allow the indefinite election of a candidate was defeated. 

The government requested an audit by the Organisation of American States which found evidence of fraud.   

 Since then, Añez has occupied the Palacio Quemado and has had to manage the COVID-19 pandemic by taking certain controversial decisions such as closing borders to Bolivians returning from other Latin American countries. 

Morales, from Argentina, urged calm from Argentina and said "the election result must be respected by everyone."He also promised to return to Bolivia – where he is being investigated for "rape and trafficking".

The Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) thanked the “Bolivian people for their civic attitude in turning out massively and peacefully to exercise their right to vote.”

“In this context in which the computation is progressing slowly, we reiterate our call for both the public and the different political actors to wait patiently for the official data. The next few days will be crucial for the future of Bolivia,” it said. The European Union delegation congratulated “the Bolivian people for having participated in a peaceful and participatory electoral day” and called for calm to be preserved while the results are known, to prevent distorting the electoral process.

With some delays in the opening of some polling stations in the nine departments of the country, long queues of voters were reported, due to security measures due to the pandemic, which made the procedure somewhat slower. Some 7.3 million Bolivians were called to the polls where voting is mandatory, to decide between five candidates for president, vice-president, senators and deputies.