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The outgoing president has emerged at the top of the first round of the presidential election with 45% of ballots counted, against 38% for his challenger, Carlos Mesa, he will face in a second round unpublished in this country, December 15 .
Predictions suggested a delicate part for Morales , head of state since 2006. They confirmed Sunday night when the president of the Supreme Electoral Court of Bolivia, Maria Eugenia Choque, announced around 8 pm (local time) the partial results ( 84% of the ballots counted): 45,28% against 38,16% for Carlos Mesa, of the movement Community citizen.
The rule in Bolivia is a bit peculiar: the candidate is declared elected in the first round when he has reached the absolute majority or 40% of the vote with ten points more than his prosecutor. This is not the case in this situation.
Only Carlos Mesa seemed to be able to stumble the 59-year-old head of state, so far systematically elected in the first round.
The emotion was palpable at the headquarters of the candidate Mesa, for whom this second round is a democratic victory: " Democracy is a fundamental value for which we have been fighting for so many years. This is the end of the single party, clientelism and hegemony. "
The candidate has mainly obtained the vote of young people and city dwellers. This 66-year-old former journalist already has a political past, not really brilliant. He was vice-president of Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who, in 2003, left the country after ordering the repression of demonstrations that caused dozens of deaths. Carlos Mesa then assumed the presidency, but abandoned it after two years of exercise. He did not have a majority in Parliament, recalls our correspondent in La Paz, Alice Campaignolle .
According to the Bolivian news agency ANF , the presidential party (MAS) should lose its general position in the Bolivian parliament with its general elections. The MAS had two thirds of the Parliament during the first three terms of Evo Morales. According to the partial results, he would be on par with the opposition with 18 out of 36 parliamentarians.