Centrist outsider Rodrigo Paz wins Bolivian presidency, ending socialist rule
Centrist senator Rodrigo Paz won Bolivia’s presidential election on Sunday, preliminary results showed, in a surprise victory that ended 20 years of dominance by the left-wing Movement Toward Socialism party. His win reflected growing anger over the country’s deepening economic crisis, fuel shortages and soaring inflation.
Issued on: 20/10/2025
By: FRANCE 24
Centrist senator Rodrigo Paz won Bolivia’s presidential election on Sunday, preliminary results showed, in a surprise victory that ended 20 years of dominance by the left-wing Movement Toward Socialism party. His win reflected growing anger over the country’s deepening economic crisis, fuel shortages and soaring inflation.
Issued on: 20/10/2025
By: FRANCE 24
Centrist senator and presidential candidate Rodrigo Paz of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) shows his ballot to the media before casting his vote, during the presidential runoff election. © Sara Aliaga, Reuters
Rodrigo Paz, a centrist senator who had never been a nationally prominent figure until now, won Bolivia’s presidential election on Sunday, preliminary results showed — galvanising voters outraged by the country’s economic crisis and frustrated after 20 years of rule by the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party.
“The trend is irreversible,” said Oscar Hassenteufel, the president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which released early results showing that Paz, 58, secured more than 54 percent of the vote. His rival, former right-wing president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, took just over 45 percent.
Paz and his popular running mate, former police captain Edman Lara, gained traction among working-class and rural voters disillusioned with the unrestrained spending of the long-ruling MAS party but wary of a radical turn away from its social protections.
Although Paz plans to end Bolivia’s fixed exchange rate, phase out generous fuel subsidies and cut back public investment, he has pledged a gradual approach to free-market reforms in hopes of avoiding a sharp recession or a spike in inflation that could further anger the public.
Quiroga, by contrast, advocated turning to the International Monetary Fund for a shock-therapy package of the kind Bolivians came to know and fear in the 1990s.
Paz’s victory sets this nation of 12 million on a sharply uncertain path as he seeks to enact major change for the first time since the 2005 election of Evo Morales, the founder of MAS and Bolivia’s first Indigenous president.
Since 2023, the Andean nation has been crippled by a shortage of US dollars that has locked Bolivians out of their own savings and hampered imports. Year-on-year inflation soared to 23 per cent last month — the highest rate since 1991 — while fuel shortages have paralysed the country, with motorists often waiting days in line to fill their tanks.
Both Quiroga and Paz vowed to break with the budget-busting populism that has dominated Bolivia under the MAS party.
“We are closing one cycle and opening another,” Paz told supporters as he cast his ballot in his hometown of Tarija alongside his father, former president Jaime Paz Zamora, earlier Sunday.
Some voters said they felt energised by the promise of change as they lined up to vote.
“Since 2005 we haven’t had any real options, so this is exciting for me,” said Carlos Flores, 41, a secondary school teacher waiting to vote for Paz.
(FRANCE 24 with AP)
Rodrigo Paz, a centrist senator who had never been a nationally prominent figure until now, won Bolivia’s presidential election on Sunday, preliminary results showed — galvanising voters outraged by the country’s economic crisis and frustrated after 20 years of rule by the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party.
“The trend is irreversible,” said Oscar Hassenteufel, the president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which released early results showing that Paz, 58, secured more than 54 percent of the vote. His rival, former right-wing president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, took just over 45 percent.
Paz and his popular running mate, former police captain Edman Lara, gained traction among working-class and rural voters disillusioned with the unrestrained spending of the long-ruling MAS party but wary of a radical turn away from its social protections.
Although Paz plans to end Bolivia’s fixed exchange rate, phase out generous fuel subsidies and cut back public investment, he has pledged a gradual approach to free-market reforms in hopes of avoiding a sharp recession or a spike in inflation that could further anger the public.
Quiroga, by contrast, advocated turning to the International Monetary Fund for a shock-therapy package of the kind Bolivians came to know and fear in the 1990s.
Paz’s victory sets this nation of 12 million on a sharply uncertain path as he seeks to enact major change for the first time since the 2005 election of Evo Morales, the founder of MAS and Bolivia’s first Indigenous president.
Since 2023, the Andean nation has been crippled by a shortage of US dollars that has locked Bolivians out of their own savings and hampered imports. Year-on-year inflation soared to 23 per cent last month — the highest rate since 1991 — while fuel shortages have paralysed the country, with motorists often waiting days in line to fill their tanks.
Both Quiroga and Paz vowed to break with the budget-busting populism that has dominated Bolivia under the MAS party.
“We are closing one cycle and opening another,” Paz told supporters as he cast his ballot in his hometown of Tarija alongside his father, former president Jaime Paz Zamora, earlier Sunday.
Some voters said they felt energised by the promise of change as they lined up to vote.
“Since 2005 we haven’t had any real options, so this is exciting for me,” said Carlos Flores, 41, a secondary school teacher waiting to vote for Paz.
(FRANCE 24 with AP)
La Paz (AFP) – Bolivians elected Rodrigo Paz as president on Sunday, selecting the center-right senator and economist to address the country's worst economic crisis in 40 years.
Issued on: 20/10/2025 - FRANCE24
Bolivians elected Rodrigo Paz as president as the country faces its worst economic crisis in decades © Lucas AGUAYO / AFP/File
Paz, 58, campaigned on slashing public spending, especially on fuel subsidies, and vowed a "capitalism for all" approach to economic reform in a marked shift from the preceding two decades of socialist government.
The president-elect, who will assume office on November 8, has promised that his governance style will be one of "consensus," as he hopes to gain public trust in a divided society.
Paz, 58, campaigned on slashing public spending, especially on fuel subsidies, and vowed a "capitalism for all" approach to economic reform in a marked shift from the preceding two decades of socialist government.
The president-elect, who will assume office on November 8, has promised that his governance style will be one of "consensus," as he hopes to gain public trust in a divided society.
Economy
Bolivia is in the grips of an economic crisis, with year-on-year inflation at 23 percent and a chronic shortage of fuel.
One of Paz's main challenges at the start of his tenure will be to find a way out of the fuel crisis and overcome a severe shortage of dollars -- the result of large government subsidies and a decrease in gas exports -- while curbing an uptick in the cost of living.
"Stabilizing the economy will require very firm measures," economist Napoleon Pacheco, a professor at La Paz's San Andres university, told AFP.
But analyst Daniela Osorio of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies warned that such measures "could lead to a social uprising."
Mistrust
Maria Teresa Zegada, a sociologist at San Simon university in La Paz, said there was "growing public dissatisfaction with politics."
A breakdown of the results of Sunday's run-off illustrates the divisions in the country, with the more conservative and richer east largely supporting right-wing candidate Jorge Quiroga, while the more impoverished west and its large Indigenous population backed Paz.
Osorio said these trends point to a revival of traditional "divisions between the east and the west, as well as between urban and rural areas."
Maria Choquetapi, a woman from the Aymara Indigenous group, told AFP from her town of Laja west of the capital: "I would like the new government to roll up their sleeves and really get to work, not like their predecessors."
Parliament
Paz's party is the biggest in parliament. But with no outright majority, the new president will have to "find agreements" to rule effectively, said Zegada.
The four right-wing parties in Bolivia's parliament will hold 119 of 130 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and all 36 in the Senate.
That means Paz will have to work with some of his political rivals despite painful "wounds" from the run-off campaign, according to Osorio.
Morales
Evo Morales, who served as president from 2006 to 2019 and was barred from running again this year, remains popular, especially among Indigenous Bolivians.
He cast a long shadow over the campaign, and in the first round, got nearly one in five voters to spoil their ballot over his exclusion from the election.
But internal divisions in his Movement Towards Socialism party have seen Morales's influence weaken.
The former president is also the target of an arrest warrant for human trafficking over an alleged sexual relationship with a minor -- an accusation he denies.
Analyst Osorio said that even a weaker Morales "remains a destabilizing factor."
Zegada, the sociologist, said that his supporters "have already warned that if the next government does not live up to its promises, they will mobilize to overthrow it."
© 2025 AFP
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