La Paz: The Bolivian electoral campaign enters its final stage today, after a poll according to which the presidential candidate of the Movement for Socialism (MAS), Luis Arce, is close to winning in the first round, Prensa Latina publishes.
The contenders are preparing to hold final rallies in the last three days left to proselytize and then the process will enter into an electoral silence or reflection on the voters’ decision, starting next Thursday.
The deadline for the dissemination of surveys ended last night, after a poll by the Ciesmori Company, which indicates that, projected its results; the winner will be Arce, with 42.2 percent of the valid votes, since the blanks and nulls do not count. .
The MAS candidate is only 0.9 percent missing to win the presidency in the first round, over former governor Carlos Mesa, from the Citizen Community (CC), in second place with 33.1 percent and followed by the evangelical extremist Luis Camacho, from the group Cree (16.7).
More relegated are Chi Hyun Chung, (3.7) former pro-American ruler Jorge Quiroga (2.8), María de la Cruz Bayá with (0.8) and Feliciano Mamani (0.7).
The Ciesmori poll indicates that 13.2 of those surveyed have not yet decided their support, while 8.6 percent abstained from responding; 4.8 percent said they would vote blank and 1.3 percent said they would annul the ballot.
The MAS, which usually has a hidden vote – electors who prefer not to declare their option- trusts that the undecided will resolve the competition in favor of their candidate on Sunday.
Faced with the great possibility that the MAS will return to the government, from which it was evicted almost a year ago by a riot tolerated by the Police and the Armed Forces, right-wing calls are intensifying that the candidates with no option should withdraw to prevent the victory from the party of the exiled president, Evo Morales.
The president of the de facto government, Jeanine Áñez, was the first to abandon the contest with that objective and her votes increased the percentage of Mesa, and yesterday Quiroga Delfín, of former dictator Hugo Banzer, did the same to prevent the MAS from winning, he said.
In addition, it is foreseeable that internal and external pressure will increase on Camacho to also decline her candidacy and support Mesa.
Both Áñez and her Minister of Government (Interior), Arturo Murillo, made indiscriminate calls for the people to vote against the MAS, tacitly for Mesa, turned into the letter of the right, and high-level officials launched accusations, insults and even complaints penalties against MAS.
Candidate Arce declared yesterday that the MAS is the only party on the left and faces the entire right, which he is sure to defeat at the polls, although he warned citizens that they must guard the vote against possible fraud.
Redacción Digital
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