The self-styled centrist Rodrigo Paz Pereira, a senator and former mayor of Tarija in southern Bolivia, won the country's second round of presidential elections on 19 October and will be sworn in on 8 November, thus ending two decades of socialist rule. The outgoing president, Luis Arce, was one of several regional leaders to congratulate him without delay. In the first round of voting in August, Paz's Christian Democratic party garnered 49 of the lower legislature's 130 seats and 13 of the Senate's 36 seats, which would give him a measure of legislative clout. Paz declared on 23 October that a renewal of ties with the United States after a 17-year break would help tackle the country's economic problems, and observers were expecting Bolivia to move away from its allies of recent years - namely Russia, China, Islamic Iran and socialist Venezuela. He clarified a day before that the rulers of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela would not be invited to his swearing-in, as they were "not democratic." Bolivia, he stressed, is a "democratic country. While there are diplomatic relations, to be respected (due to) previous conditions, our condition for relations is based on democracy." The BBC summarized in a report on 20 October the president-elect's reform and liberalization plans.
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