On the 23rd local time, the Supreme Electoral Court of Bolivia announced that after all the votes in the general election held on the 18th, the candidate of the “Party for the Socialist Movement” of Bolivia’s leftist party and former Minister of Economy, Luis Arce, won 55.1% of the votes. Elected the new president of the country. The second-ranked presidential candidate, former President Carlos Mesa, got 28.83% of the votes.
In addition, according to the official voting results announced that day, the “Party for the Socialist Movement” also won 73 seats in the House of Representatives and 21 seats in the Senate in the election, occupying more than half of the seats in both houses.
The statutory general election in Bolivia was held in October 2019. According to the plan, the president and vice president, 130 members of the House of Representatives and 36 senators will be elected. However, the election result was deemed invalid due to election fraud. The then President Morales, who was seeking a fourth re-election, was forced to resign and went into exile overseas, triggering large-scale social unrest in Bolivia. The general election was rescheduled and resumed on May 3 this year, and due to the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, it was postponed to October 18. In order to avoid recurrence of disputes caused by the counting problem, the Supreme Electoral Court of Bolivia will announce before the election that the official preliminary results release procedures will not be used for this election. The final results will be announced within 7 days after the election day according to law, but polling agencies are allowed The statistical results of the quick count and export polls will be announced on the day of the election.
Statistics released by many local authoritative polling agencies on the 19th showed that Alsay’s vote rate was about 50% to 54%. According to the Constitution of Bolivia, in the presidential election, the candidate with more than 50% of the votes, or more than 40% of the votes and 10% ahead of the second-ranked candidate wins. Otherwise, the second round of voting in the presidential election will be held. Therefore, Arsay publicly announced his victory on the 19th. Bolivia’s interim president Añez immediately acknowledged that Arsay won the election. Mesa, Alsay’s biggest rival, admitted defeat. The Organization of American States, Argentina, Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, Paraguay, Peru and other Latin American presidents, as well as the United States, the European Union and many other parties have successively congratulated Arce for his victory.
The 57-year-old Arce has served as a professor of economics and served as executives at the Central Bank of Bolivia and the World Bank. From 2006 to 2019, he served as the Minister of Economy of the Morales Government for a long time, and he has many real achievements. He is considered to be a loyal supporter of Morales and an important implementer of major policies.
