Centrist Rodrigo Paz won Bolivia's presidential runoff on Sunday, defeating conservative rival Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga, as the country's worst economic crisis in a generation helped propel the end of nearly two decades of leftist rule.

Paz, a senator from the Christian Democratic Party, won 54.5% of the vote, beating Quiroga's 45.5%, according to early results from Bolivia's electoral tribunal. But Paz's party does not hold a majority in the country's legislature, which will force him to forge alliances to govern effectively. The new president takes office on November 8.

The 58-year-old senator's win marks a historic shift for the South American country, governed almost continuously since 2006 by Bolivia's Movement to Socialism, or MAS, which once enjoyed overwhelming support from the count

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