“All the data known so far indicate that there has been a victory for the Movement for Socialism,” Mr. Morales, who handpicked Mr. Arce and has been closely advising the campaign, said in a press conference in Buenos Aires. Mr. Arce, a former Economy Minister under Mr. Morales, sounded confident of victory without explicitly claiming the win at his own press conference shortly after midnight in the Bolivian capital La Paz. “We are going to work, and we will resume the process of change without hate,” Mr. Arce told reporters. Jeanine Anez, the conservative interim President who took over in a power vacuum last year, said that it appeared Mr. Arce was the election winner and offered her congratulations. “The vote is set to be the most important since Bolivia returned to democracy in 1982,” Carlos Valverde, a political analyst, said earlier in the day.

Source: The Hindu October 19, 2020 16:41 UTC