PRESIDENT Evo Morales’s Movement Towards Socialism party (MAS) suffered a shock defeat in Bolivian capital La Paz in Sunday’s local government elections.

Just months after a sweeping general election win, MAS slipped up in two other provinces — Santa Cruz and Tarija — but won four others and is well placed to take the remaining two.

The ruling party registered victories in the provinces of Pando and Cochabamba with more than 60 per cent of the votes and in Oruro with 55 per cent of the votes. In Potosi, MAS won with 57.1 per cent.

The provinces of Beni and Chiquisaca appear to be heading for a second round on May 3, with MAS leading after Sunday’s vote but lacking the 10-point advantage over the second-placed candidate necessary to be declared the outright winner.

If MAS wins in a second round in the traditional opposition stronghold of Beni, it would be the first time in a decade that the province is not ruled by the right.

Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera blamed the defeat in La Paz on “training weaknesses of local leadership, both at the departmental and municipal levels.”

He praised the conduct of the elections as having been “peaceful, participatory and democratic.”

The MAS leader added that results nationwide reaffirmed the left-wing party as the strongest political force in the country.

Bolivia’s electoral authority gave preliminary figures indicating that at least 85 per cent of the more than six million registered voters participated in Sunday’s election.

by Our Foreign Desk