LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Rodrigo Paz, a centrist senator who was never a nationally prominent figure until now, won Bolivia’s presidential election on Sunday, preliminary results showed, galvanizing voters outraged by the country’s economic crisis and frustrated with 20 years of rule by the Movement Toward Socialism party.

“The trend is irreversible,” said Óscar Hassenteufel, the president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal that released the early results showing that Paz, 58, secured more than 54% of the vote. His rival, former right-wing President Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, won just over 45% of the vote.

Paz and his popular running mate, ex-police Capt. Edman Lara, gained traction among working-class and rural voters disillusioned with the unbridled spending of the long-ruling Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party but wary of a radical 180-degree turn away from its social protections.

Although Paz plans to end Bolivia’s fixed exchange rate, phase out generous fuel subsidies and reduce hefty public investment, he says he’ll take a gradual approach to free-market reforms in hopes of avoiding a sharp recession or jump in inflation that would enrage the masses.

In contrast, Quiroga advocated relying on the International Monetary Fund for a shock treatment package of the kind Bolivians came to know and fear in the 1990s.

Paz’s victory sets this nation of 12 million in South America on a sharply uncertain path as he seeks to enact major change for the first time since the 2005 election of Evo Morales, the founder of MAS and Bolivia’s first Indigenous president.

Since 2023, the Andean nation has been crippled by a shortage of U.S. dollars that has locked Bolivians out of their own savings and hampered imports. Year-on-year inflation soared to 23% last month, the highest rate since 1991. Fuel shortages paralyze the country, with motorists often waiting days in line to fill up their tanks.

Quiroga and Paz both vowed to break with the budget-busting populism that dominated Bolivia under the MAS party.

“We are closing one cycle and opening another,” Paz told supporters as he cast his ballot in his hometown of Tarija, alongside his father, former President Jaime Paz Zamora, earlier Sunday.

Some voters said they felt energized by the promise of change as they lined up to vote.

“Since 2005 we haven’t had any real options, so this is exciting for me,” said high school teacher Carlos Flores, 41, who was waiting to vote for Paz.