Sucre: Bolivia will hold a new presidential election on May 3, the country’s electoral tribunal has announced, weeks after the results of the previous elections were annulled following allegations of fraud.
“It will be a crucial election for the future of Bolivia’s democratic system,” Salvador Romero, the recently named president of the tribunal, told The Washington Post.
Romero said the election tribunal is working to fix problems with vote counting and the computer system, which, the Organization of American States (OAS) had claimed, allowed previous elections to be manipulated.
Bolivia’s now-ousted President Evo Morales was declared the winner of the fourth term last year in a widely disputed election which prompted street protests in the country. As the protests grew violent, Morales resigned from the post in November, last year, and fled to Mexico, where he has since been living.
Opposition lawmaker Jeanine Anez then took over as interim president and was quickly recognized by the United States. Morales and his supporters have described the sequence of events as a coup.