Bolivian President Evo Morales came out ahead in the first round of the country’s presidential election, but he appears to have failed to get enough votes to avoid the first runoff in his nearly 14 years in power.
The preliminary results released late on Sunday dealt a harsh blow to South America’s longest-serving leader in what has become the tightest political race of his life.
However, Morales, who is seeking a fourth term, still declared victory and told supporters at the presidential palace that “the people again imposed their will.”
The Andean country’s top electoral authority said that with 83 percent of the vote counted, Morales was in first with 45.3 percent, followed by former Bolivian president Carlos Mesa with 38.2 percent for second place in the field of nine candidates.
A special electoral mission from the Organization of American States said it was closely monitoring the election and requested information from the Bolivian Supreme Electoral Tribunal after the transmission of preliminary results was halted.
If the results hold, Morales and Mesa would face off in a December ballot, in which Morales could be vulnerable to a united opposition.
“We’re in a runoff,” Mesa told supporters shortly after the first results were announced.
He said his coalition had scored “an unquestionable triumph,” and called on others parties to join him for a “definitive triumph” in the second round.
Morales, 59, a native Aymara from Bolivia’s highlands, came to prominence leading social protests and rose to power as the country’ first indigenous president in 2006. Since then, he coasted to two re-election victories and presided over more than a decade of business-boosting economic growth in South America’s poorest country.
Following a boom in commodities prices, Morales paved roads, sent Bolivia’s first satellite to space and curbed inflation. Stadiums, markets, schools, state enterprises and even a village bear his name.
Being forced into a runoff “is a sharp blow to Morales, whose political success has been impressive and who seemed confident of a first-round win,” said Michael Shifter, head of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank.
“Morales’ failure to achieve a first-round victory reflects growing concern about a slowing economy, corruption scandals and his determination to pursue a fourth term in defiance of a national referendum and the Bolivian constitution. Many Bolivians are simply weary. If re-elected, Evo will be in office nearly two decades,” he said.
Mesa is a 66-year-old historian who as vice president rose to Bolivia’s top office when his predecessor resigned the presidency in 2003 amid widespread protests.
Mesa then stepped aside himself in 2005 amid renewed demonstrations led by Morales, who was then leader of the coca growers’ union.
“In a second round the question will be if the opposition can unite behind one candidate,” said Christopher Sabatini, a lecturer at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York and a senior research fellow at Chatham House.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the