‘WE’VE RECOVERED OUR DEMOCRACY’

Evo Morales’ Socialist Party Wins Bolivian Presidential Election in Do-Over Vote

Former leader, pushed to exile in Argentina, cheers as his former finance minister, Luis Arce, appears to have won more than 50 percent of votes.

Bolivia’s socialist party is likely to be declared the winners of the country’s bitter presidential election, after the right-wing, U.S.-backed interim president, Jeanine Áñez Chavez, conceded defeat. Sunday’s vote, a do-over of last year’s questionable contest, proceeded peacefully. That vote ended with longtime socialist President Evo Morales fleeing to exile as opponents alleged fraud. Morales, banned from running this time, watched from Argentina as his former finance minister, front-runner Luis Arce, 57, raced to the top of unofficial exit polls. Arce is likely to win more than 50 percent of the vote, enough to avoid a November runoff and claim outright victory. “I congratulate the winners and I ask them to govern thinking in Bolivia and in our democracy,” Áñez said on Twitter. “We’ve recovered our democracy,” Morales said in brief remarks from exile in Argentina. “Lucho will be our president.” The authorities have up to five days to declare an official winner.