A new Bolivian president should have been elected a year earlier. But the results of the October 2019 election were annulled after observers from the Organization of American States (OAS), seconded by the European Union, claimed to have found significant irregularities in the vote tallies. On election night, vote counting was suddenly suspended for twenty-four hours, after which the lead of the incumbent candidate, the socialist Evo Morales, increased from 7 percent to 10 percent—the exact margin required to avoid a runoff. At first, Morales, who had been president of Bolivia since 2006, contested the findings of the OAS and the EU. A popular and outspoken indigenous leader, he had been favored to win a fourth term, but the allegations of electoral fraud sparked mass protests against his government.
