Centrist Wins in Bolivia, Topping Right-Wing Rival

Rodrigo Paz, a centrist senator who was never a nationally prominent figure until now, won Bolivia's presidential election on Sunday, preliminary results showed, galvanizing voters outraged by the country's economic crisis and frustrated after 20 years of rule by the Movement Toward Socialism party. "The trend is irreversible," Óscar Hassenteufel, the president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, said of Paz's lead over his rival, former right-wing President Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga. Paz won 54% of the votes, early results showed, versus Quiroga's 45%, the AP reports. Paz took the podium Sunday night flanked by his wife, María Helena Urquidi, and four adult children. The hotel ballroom in Bolivia's capital of La Paz went wild, with people shouting his name and holding phones aloft.

"Today, Bolivia can be certain that this will be a government that will bring solutions," he told supporters. "Bolivia breathes winds of change and renewal to move forward." Shortly after the results came in, Quiroga conceded to Paz. Paz and his popular running mate, ex-police Capt. Edman Lara, gained traction among working-class and rural voters disillusioned with the unbridled spending of the long-ruling Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party but wary of Quiroga's radical 180-degree turn away from its social protections. Paz's victory sets this South American 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.

Although Paz's Christian Democratic Party has the cushion of a slight majority in Congress, he'll still need to compromise to push through an ambitious overhaul. Paz plans to end Bolivia's fixed exchange rate, phase out generous fuel subsidies, and reduce hefty public investment, redrawing much of the MAS economic model that dominated for two decades. But he says he'll maintain MAS-style benefits and take a gradual approach to free-market reforms, in hopes of avoiding a sharp recession or jump in inflation that would enrage the masses—as has happened before in Bolivia. (Click for more, including the economic crisis Paz is walking into.)