On Sunday, October 20th, Bolivia held elections for a new president. The main rivalry has been between the current president of 13 years, Evo Morales, and former Bolivian President, Carlos Mesa. This was Evo Morales’ 4th election and Carlos Mesa’s 1st election. After all the votes around the world had been counted, it turned out that Evo Morales had won the election with 47.08% of the votes while Carlos Mesa had 36.51% of the votes. In order to win you have to have at least a 10% difference between the top two candidates, with there being a 10% difference, Morales won the election.

However many people claim that there had been a fraud, and that Morales shouldn’t have won. That same Sunday, at 7:49 pm they stopped sharing the total votes on the website, after they started releasing the votes again on Monday, there was a bigger gap in between Morales and Mesa, making it possible for Morales to win with a 10% difference. Because of this people have been going out on the streets and protesting asking to cancel the election or to go to a second round between Morales and Mesa.

 

Photo courtesy of The Washington Post.