(17 Aug 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Villa Tunari, Bolivia – 17 August 2025
1. Former President Evo Morales arriving to vote, people throwing confetti as they greet him
2. Various of Morales arriving to voting center, shaking hands of poll workers
3. Morales putting ballot inside ballot box
4. Various of Morales leaving
5. Morales taking photos with supporters
6. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Evo Morales, former President of Bolivia:
"I hope the Supreme Electoral Tribunal is not under the control of the executive branch, under the control of any party, nor of the (null vote, referring to blank vote). But that it respects the results of this election. I am convinced (It will be) the first in history; if there is no fraud, the null vote will be the first because there is no democracy. That can be seen throughout Bolivia. We just saw that the election started in Spain, Argentina and the null vote is winning so far abroad. They know what is happening in Bolivia."
7. Various of Morales leaving
8. Voters outside voting center
STORYLINE:
Former President Evo Morales Bolivians headed to the polls on Sunday as the nation votes for a new president and parliament in elections that could spell the end of the Andean nation’s long-dominant leftist party and see a right-wing government elected for the first time in over two decades.
The election is one of the most consequential for Bolivia in recent times — and one of the most unpredictable.
Even at this late stage, a remarkable 30% or so of voters remain undecided.
Polls have shown the two leading right-wing candidates, multimillionaire business owner Samuel Doria Medina and former President Jorge Fernando “Tuto” Quiroga, locked in a virtual dead heat.
A right-wing victory isn’t assured.
Many longtime voters for the governing Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party, now shattered by infighting, live in rural areas and tend to be undercounted in polling.
Rather than back the candidate widely considered his heir, Morales, holed up in his tropical stronghold and evading an arrest warrant on charges related to his relationship with a 15-year-old girl, has urged his supporters to deface their ballots or leave them blank.
"I hope the Supreme Electoral Tribunal is not under the control of the executive branch, under the control of any party, nor of the (null vote, referring to blank vote). But that it respects the results of this election," said Morales after voting.
Voting is mandatory in Bolivia, where some 7.9 million Bolivians are eligible to vote. President Arce appealed to the population to reject Morales’ calls, arguing that those spoiling their ballots were doing damage to democracy.
“We urge the population to go out and vote,” he said while casting his vote in Bolivia’s capital of La Paz. “We must demonstrate unity and commitment to democracy."
If, as is widely expected, no one receives more than 50% of the vote, or 40% of the vote with a lead of 10 percentage points, the top two candidates will compete in a runoff on Oct. 19 for the first time since Bolivia’s 1982 return to democracy.
With the nation’s worst economic crisis in four decades leaving Bolivians waiting hours in fuel lines, struggling to find subsidized bread and squeezed by double-digit inflation, the opposition candidates bill the race as a chance to alter the country’s destiny.
AP video by Cesar Olmos
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