LA PAZ
\nBolivians head to the polls Sunday for elections marked by a deep economic crisis that has seen the left implode and the right eyeing its first shot at power in 20 years.
\nThe Andean country is struggling through its worst crisis in a generation, marked by annual inflation of almost 25 percent and critical shortages of dollars and fuel.
\nPolls show voters poised to punish the ruling Movement toward Socialism (MAS), in power since 2005 when Evo Morales was elected Bolivia\u2019s first Indigenous president.
\nCenter-right business tycoon Samuel Doria Medina and right-wing ex-president Jorge \u201cTuto\u201d Quiroga are the favorites to succeed Morales\u2019s unpopular successor, Luis Arce, who is not seeking re-election.
\nPolls showed Doria Medina, 66, and Quiroga, 65, neck-and-neck on around 20 percent, with six other candidates, including left-wing Senate president Andronico Rodriguez, trailing far behind.
\nA run-off will take place on October 19 if no candidate wins an outright majority.
\nThe two frontrunners have vowed radical changes to Bolivia\u2019s big-state economic model if elected.
\nThey want to slash public spending, open the country to foreign investment and boost ties with the United States, which were downgraded under the combative Morales, a self-described anti-capitalist anti-imperialist.
\nMarcela Sirpa, a 63-year Indigenous street seller who traditionally voted for MAS, has thrown her support behind Quiroga.
\n\u201cThey (MAS) left us all in the gutter,\u201d she explained at a candidate\u2019s street party in La Paz.
\nAll seats in Bolivia\u2019s bicameral legislature are also up for election on Sunday.
\nAnalysts say the election resembles that of 2023 Argentina, where voters dumped the long-ruling leftist Peronists and elected libertarian candidate Javier Milei in a bid to end a deep crisis.
\n\u201cWhat people are looking for now, beyond a shift from left to right, is a return to stability,\u201d Daniela Osorio Michel, a Bolivian political scientist at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, told AFP.
\nUnlike Milei, who was a political newcomer, Doria Medina and Quiroga are both on their fourth run for president.
\nDoria Medina, a millionaire former planning minister, made a fortune in cement before going on to build Bolivia\u2019s biggest skyscraper and acquire the local Burger King franchise.
\nSeen as a moderate, he has vowed to halt inflation and bring back fuel and dollars within 100 days, without cutting anti-poverty programs.
\nThe tough-talking Quiroga, who trained as an engineer in the United States, served as vice president under reformed ex-dictator Hugo Banzer and then briefly as president when Banzer stepped down to fight cancer in 2001.
\n\u201cWe will change everything, absolutely everything after 20 lost years,\u201d he trumpeted during his closing rally in La Paz on Wednesday.
\nBolivia enjoyed over a decade of strong growth and Indigenous upliftment under Morales, who nationalized the gas sector and plowed the proceeds into social programs that halved extreme poverty.
\nBut underinvestment in exploration has caused gas revenues to implode, falling from a peak of $6.1 billion in 2013 to $1.6 billion last year.
\nWith the country\u2019s other major resource, lithium, still underground, the government has nearly run out of the foreign exchange needed to import fuel, wheat and other foodstuffs.
\nBolivians have repeatedly taken to the streets to protest rocketing prices and hours-long wait for fuel, bread and other basics.
\n\u201cIn these past 20 years, we\u2019ve had good income, but the government didn\u2019t invest in anything or propose new directions for… how to better expand our economy,\u201d 21-year-old student Miguel Angel Miranda said.
\nMorales, who was barred from standing for a fourth term, has cast a long shadow over the campaign.
\nThe 65-year-old has called on his mostly rural Indigenous supporters to spoil their ballots over the refusal by electoral authorities to allow him run again.
\nMatilde Choque Apaza, the pro-Morales leader of a rural and Indigenous women\u2019s association, backed his call for a \u201cvoto nulo.\u201d
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t want to go back to the 20th century,\u201d she said, vowing that Bolivians, ever prone to revolt, \u201cwill rise up at any time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LA PAZ Bolivians head to the polls Sunday for elections marked by a deep economic crisis that has seen the left implode and the right eyeing its first shot at power in 20 years. The Andean country is struggling through its worst crisis in a generation, marked by annual inflation of almost 25 percent and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497318,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-497319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n