Lara was the antidote to fatigue after two decades of crisis
Paz Pereira secured 32.14% of votes, far exceeding pre-election polls that had him at only 8%, while traditional candidates Doria Medina and Quiroga underperformed expectations. Edman Lara, the vice-presidential candidate and anti-corruption police whistleblower, emerged as a key 'outsider' figure resonating with voters fatigued by traditional politics and economic crisis.
- Paz Pereira won 32.14% of votes, up from 8% in final polls
- Edman Lara, police whistleblower and vice-presidential candidate, emerged as key outsider figure
- Doria Medina dropped from 21% (polls) to 19.86% (results); Quiroga finished second with 26.81%
- Turnout was 36.9% with 6.464 million votes cast
Rodrigo Paz Pereira of Bolivia's PDC party unexpectedly led the first round of presidential elections with 32.14% of votes, defying polls that predicted a runoff between traditional opposition figures. Analysts attribute his victory to his running mate Edman Lara as an anti-establishment figure and grassroots campaign strategy.
The polls had been clear enough. Samuel Doria Medina and Jorge Quiroga—the familiar faces of Bolivian opposition politics—were supposed to face each other in a runoff. That was the consensus. That was what the numbers said. On August 17, when Bolivians went to the polls, something else happened entirely.
Rodrigo Paz Pereira, the Christian Democratic candidate, finished first with 32.14 percent of the vote. Quiroga came second with 26.81 percent. Doria Medina, who had led the final Ipsos-Ciesmori survey with 21 percent support, dropped to third place with 19.86 percent. The result was so far removed from what the pollsters had predicted that it seemed to defy explanation. Paz Pereira had been polling at just 8 percent. Turnout was low—36.9 percent—but the message from those who showed up was unmistakable: they wanted something different.
Two political analysts who spoke to La República identified the same core factor behind the upset. Edman Lara, Paz Pereira's running mate and the vice-presidential candidate on the PDC ticket, was not a traditional politician. Known as 'El Capitán Lara,' he was a police officer who had been expelled from the academy after exposing corruption within the force. He had built a following on TikTok. He represented, in the language of electoral politics, an outsider—someone from outside the system that Bolivians had grown exhausted by. Natalia Aparicio, a political analyst, put it plainly: Lara was the antidote to fatigue. After nearly two decades of leftist governance and amid an economic crisis that had worn the country down, voters were hungry for a figure who seemed untainted by the usual machinery of power.
But Lara's appeal ran deeper than mere novelty. The Bolivian police force is widely regarded as one of the country's most corrupt institutions. By positioning himself as a reformer willing to dismantle those structures, Lara tapped into a wellspring of public anger toward authority itself. Óscar Gracia Landaeta, a political philosopher and director at the Universidad Privada Boliviana, described what had happened as a rejection vote—an anti-system choice made by voters who saw little difference between the traditional candidates and wanted to punish the political establishment for its failures.
Paz Pereira's campaign had also been deliberately constructed to reach people the right had historically struggled to mobilize. He campaigned in rural areas, in markets, in working-class neighborhoods—spaces that had been left unattended as the left collapsed and the traditional opposition focused on wealthier urban voters. His platform mixed progressive positions, including support for marijuana legalization, with evangelical and Christian messaging that resonated with the roughly 80 percent of Bolivians who identify with Judeo-Christian faith. It was a hybrid approach, neither purely left nor purely right, designed to appeal across fractured constituencies.
Doria Medina's defeat was instructive in its own way. Despite his success as a businessman and his consolidation as the opposition's most credible leader, he had miscalculated the electoral landscape. He believed that anti-MAS sentiment—opposition to the leftist party that had governed for so long—would be enough to carry him through. But the MAS had already fragmented and lost relevance. The anti-left vote was no longer the dominant force it had been. Gracia noted that Doria Medina lacked the political skill and personal magnetism to stand out in debates or capture imagination. Quiroga, by contrast, had managed to hold onto second place by appealing to the upper-middle-class opposition voters who had traditionally supported the right.
The first round had delivered a clear signal: Bolivia's next government would move away from the left after nearly twenty years. But it would not be led by the figures who had been waiting in the wings. Instead, it would be shaped by a coalition built on anti-establishment sentiment, grassroots organizing, and the symbolic power of an outsider willing to challenge institutional corruption. The runoff between Paz Pereira and Quiroga would determine whether that impulse could be sustained, or whether traditional politics would reassert itself in the final round.
Citas Notables
Edman Lara is the escape from people's exhaustion with the same old politicians— Natalia Aparicio, political analyst
The anti-system vote, fundamental rejection of traditional candidates, was very important in this scenario— Óscar Gracia Landaeta, political philosopher
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why did the polls miss this so badly? Paz Pereira was at 8 percent.
The polls were measuring traditional political preferences. They didn't account for how much the electorate had shifted toward wanting someone from outside the system entirely. Lara wasn't a known quantity in the traditional sense—he was known on TikTok, in grassroots spaces, not in the survey samples.
So Edman Lara was the real candidate?
Not exactly. But he was the permission structure. Paz Pereira could campaign as a reformer because Lara embodied reform. A police whistleblower carries credibility that a career politician simply cannot manufacture.
Why did Doria Medina collapse so dramatically?
He bet everything on anti-MAS sentiment. But the MAS had already fallen apart. The left wasn't the threat voters were worried about anymore—they were worried about whether anything would actually change. Doria Medina represented continuity with the old opposition. That wasn't what people wanted.
What about Quiroga? He came second.
Quiroga had political skill. He could perform in debates, connect with upper-middle-class voters who still believed in traditional opposition politics. But he was still part of the old guard. He just did it better than Doria Medina.
The campaign strategy in markets and rural areas—that was deliberate?
Completely deliberate. The right had abandoned those spaces. The left had lost them. Paz Pereira moved in and organized there. It's basic political work, but nobody else was doing it.
What happens in the runoff?
That's the real question. Can Paz Pereira and Lara sustain the anti-establishment energy, or does Quiroga's traditional opposition base consolidate? The first round was a rejection. The second round will test whether that rejection can become a governing coalition.