<figure id="attachment_3182823" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3182823" style="width: 1600px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-3182823" src="https://media.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/970eccb4-bolivia-election-afp-14_10_25.webp" alt="" width="1600" height="1000" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-3182823" class="wp-caption-text">Bolivia&#8217;s presidential candidate for the &#8220;Alianza Libre&#8221; (Free Alliance) coalition, Jorge &#8220;Tuto&#8221; Quiroga (left), and his vice president candidate, Juan Pablo Velasco, gesture during a press conference. (AFP pic)</figcaption></figure>
LA PAZ: An ex-president and a senator will go head-to-head in Bolivia&#8217;s presidential runoff Sunday, both with promises to fix the South American country&#8217;s broken economy.
Senator Rodrigo Paz of the Christian Democratic Party came from behind to take the top spot with 32 percent of votes cast in a first round in August, but has since fallen behind ex-president Jorge &#8220;Tuto&#8221; Quiroga of the Freedom and Democracy (Libre) Alliance in stated voter intention.
Here is a look at the two candidates:
Rodrigo Paz: &#8216;Capitalism for all&#8217;
The 58-year-old son of former president Jaime Paz Zamora (1989-1993) was born in Spain, where his family fled successive military dictatorships and where he spent his early years in exile.
The heir of a political dynasty, he has been a mayor, a congressman and now serves as the senator for Tarija, an oil- and gas-rich department where his family hails from.
The candidate&#8217;s lineage also includes great-uncle Victor Paz Estenssoro, a leftist four-time president.
In interviews with AFP, voters described Paz as untainted by association with either the widely discredited socialists in power for the last 20 years, or the traditional right represented by Quiroga.
His opponents, however, say Paz has the backing of the MAS party created by leftist firebrand Evo Morales and blamed by many for the country&#8217;s economic woes.
In an election campaign marked by mudslinging and disinformation, Paz promised to cut taxes, eliminate all import duties and ensure &#8220;capitalism for all, not just for a few.&#8221;
He has also advocated a large degree of decentralization.
Part of his appeal has been attributed to his running mate, highly popular former police captain Edmand Lara, known for his broadsides against corruption.
Critics say Paz is trying to be everything for everyone.
Jorge Quiroga: &#8216;small state&#8217; advocate&#8217;
A US-trained engineer from the central city of Cochabamba, Quiroga has worked at IBM, as well as major Bolivian banking and mining firms in between stints in politics.
He has also represented Bolivia at the IMF and the World Bank.
Quiroga served as vice president under Hugo Banzer. When the incumbent stepped down in 2001 due to cancer, Quiroga served out the remaining 12 months of his term.
The blunt-spoken 65-year-old neoliberal with a knack for snappy soundbites is a favorite of wealthier Bolivians of European descent.
&#8220;I think this &#8216;Tuto&#8217; has something. He&#8217;s an economist, he&#8217;s a businessman. But he has a way with people,&#8221; Paul Chacon Diaz, a 56-year-old entrepreneur, told AFP.
Quiroga has adopted his nickname &#8220;Tuto&#8221; as part of his legal identity.
An amateur mountaineer and avid runner, Quiroga lost out to socialist candidates in presidential elections in 2005 and 2014. He also ran in 2020, but dropped out at the last minute because of his poor standing in polls.
He vowed to go further than other hopefuls in liberalizing the economy after what he calls &#8220;20 years of suffering, of pain, of shame, of corruption&#8221; under the leftist MAS party founded by Morales.
Insisting he is &#8220;fully committed to the fight for democracy&#8221; at home and abroad, Quiroga has said he would break off ties with authoritarian leftist governments in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Campaign team members have described Quiroga as hard-working and results-driven.
But detractors view him as synonymous with Bolivia&#8217;s racial divisions.
&#8220;The extreme right for me is Tuto, because he discriminates against the collas&#8221; as Bolivia&#8217;s Indigenous Aymaras are called, Daniel Lopez, a 43-year-old shoe shiner, told AFP in La Paz.

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