What to know about Rodrigo Paz, the centrist who shot from obscurity to Bolivia’s presidency

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Three months ago, Rodrigo Paz was a little-known Bolivian opposition senator with a famous father and a mixed reputation as mayor. Now he’s the first conservative to win a presidential election in the country in 20 years.

To widespread surprise, the centrist Paz, 58, beat out his far more prominent right-wing opponent, former President Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, to clinch a victory in Bolivia’s presidential runoff on Sunday. He becomes Bolivia’s next head of state on Nov. 8.

The senator inherits an economy in shambles after 20 years of rule by the Movement Toward Socialism party, founded by charismatic former President Evo Morales (in office 2006-2019). The party had its heyday during the commodities boom of the early 2000s, but natural gas exports have sputtered and its statist economic model of generous subsidies and a fixed exchange rate has since collapsed.

Crippled by a shortage of U.S. dollars and fuel shortages that leave them waiting days in queues, voters across the country on Sunday chose Paz to lift them out of their worst economic crisis in four decades. Paz pitched major reforms but at a more gradual pace than Quiroga, who advocated relying on an International Monetary Fund bailout and fiscal shock program.

An unknown face with a well-known name

The son of former President Jaime Paz Zamora, who governed from 1989 to 1993, and Spaniard Carmen Pereira, Rodrigo Paz was born in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and spent his early childhood there.

His father, one of the founders in the 1960s of the Marxist-inspired Revolutionary Left Movement, had gone into exile in Spain to escape the repressive rule of General Hugo Bánzer, one a series of dictators who ruled Bolivia from 1964 to 1982.

Paz Zamora returned to Peru when Bánzer stepped down in 1978. Years later, in an ironic twist, he made a political pact with the man who had imprisoned and exiled him. When Paz Zamora ran for president in 1989, a close vote threw the choice of president to Bolivia’s Congress, and the socialist struck a deal with dictator-turned-conservative politician to secure victory.

His tenure brought tight fiscal discipline and free-market reforms to rein in inflation, thrilling investors but disappointing his former left-wing supporters who watched inequality deepen and unemployment persist.

Paz began his political career in his father’s leftist political party but later, like the elder Paz, recast himself as a conservative committed to pragmatic, business-friendly reforms. He started out as a lawmaker in the lower house of Congress before becoming mayor of the southern city of Tarija, his hometown, from 2015-2020.

He has been a senator since.

Tarija has not embraced its native son: In both the first and second round of presidential elections, Paz’s party lost in the region even as it swept six of the country’s nine departments.

As mayor, he modernized downtown Tairja with pedestrian malls and vast plazas that left many working-class residents feeling left behind as the oil-rich region reeled from plummeting revenues. Paz’s public sector layoffs to reduce a mounting deficit enraged unions.

From bottom of the polls to president-elect

When Bolivia’s campaign season kicked off in early August, the soft-spoken senator from Tarija didn’t even make the cut for the first televised debates. Security guards were called in at the first debate to remove a group of his supporters who disrupted the livestream raising a sign with Paz’s contact information so he could be invited to the next one.

Ahead of the Aug. 17 election, he was polling near the bottom of the eight-candidate field. At small campaign stops across the Andean highlands, he struggled to fill auditoriums.

His choice of ex-police Capt. Edman Lara as his running mate was almost accidental — a last-minute fix after Paz’s first choice withdrew. But “Captain Lara,” as he’s known, turbocharged Paz’s campaign, ultimately propelling the ticket to victory in both electoral rounds.

Lara’s story — fired from the police in 2023 for denouncing corruption in viral TikTok videos — amplified Paz’s anti-corruption message and resonated with working-class, Indigenous residents of Bolivia’s highlands that once made up the base of the Movement Toward Socialism party.

The pair mounted a fast-paced underdog campaign, crisscrossing cities and rural communities to throw beer-soaked, no-frills events with the message of “capitalism for all.” Serving grilled meat and skimping on fancy billboards, they played up their contrast with the wealthy Quiroga and his large campaign war chest.

Despite Paz’s plans to eliminate fuel subsidies, devalue the Bolivian currency and scale back public investment, the populist tone of their campaign convinced voters that they would move at a palatable pace.

They also promised cash handouts for the poor and other benefits to cushion the blow of the toughest cutbacks, appealing to a spectrum of voters across the diverse country.

A reset in relations with the US

Between the first round election and Sunday’s runoff, Paz visited Washington, speaking at think tanks and expressing a conviction that improving relations with the United States is necessary for Bolivia’s success.

That could mark a major shift for Bolivia after years of antipathy toward the United States that goes back to 2008, when Morales kicked out the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and expelled the American ambassador. Ever since, Bolivia has allied with Venezuela and other left-wing governments in the region and world powers like China and Russia.

Late Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that Paz’s victory “marks a transformative opportunity for both nations.

“The United States stands ready to partner with Bolivia on shared priorities, including ending illegal immigration, improved market access for bilateral investment, and combating transnational criminal organizations to strengthen regional security.”