MAS officially wins Bolivia's elections. (Photo: AP)

La Paz, October 20 (RHC)-- With 77% of the votes counted, Bolivia's Supreme Electoral Tribunal certified an absolute majority of votes and an advantage of more than 20 percentage points for Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca, representatives of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS).

With nearly 80 percent of the votes counted, the MAS had two million 510 thousand 68 votes, for 52.77 percent of the ballots, while its closest rival, Comunidad Ciudadana, represented by Carlos Mesa, came in second place with 30.81 percentage points, according to the site computo.oep.org.bo.

The pollsters, using exit polling data and quick counts, projected that Arce would get between 52.4 and 53 percent of the valid votes.  

The victory of the MAS candidates could be by a higher percentage than projected because a large part of the votes not yet counted correspond to the rural area, where the party of former president Evo Morales (2006-2019) has massive support.