Anez Quits Bolivia Election to Unite Anti-Socialist Vote
Anez Quits Bolivia Race to Avoid Splitting Anti-Socialist Vote
(Bloomberg) -- Bolivia’s interim President Jeanine Anez pulled out of the nation’s presidential election race a month before the vote, after polls showed her losing support.
Anez said her decision was aimed at preventing former President Evo Morales’s socialist movement MAS from benefiting from division among its opponents.
“I do this because of the risk we face that the democratic vote is split between various candidates and that, in consequence of this division, the MAS ends up winning the election,” Anez said in a statement.
The first round of voting for president and congress is scheduled for Oct. 18. A runoff for president will be held on Nov. 29 if no candidate gets a big enough margin of support to win outright in the first round.
A poll published by El Deber newspaper this week showed socialist candidate Luis Arce leading the race with 40.3%, followed by former President Carlos Mesa with 26.2%.
Under Bolivia’s election rules, that margin of more than 10 percentage points would be enough to give Arce a first-round win. Anez was in fourth place with 10.2%, and by pulling out she increases the chances of a second round in which anti-MAS voters would unite behind Mesa.
Bolivia has been without an elected leader since Morales quit and fled the country amid violent protests last November. The vote to choose his replacement has been delayed twice due to the pandemic.
The country is forecast to suffer its deepest economic slump since the 1980s this year.
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