UPDATE 2-La Paz strikes in protest of Bolivia election results

Protesters blocked roads and shop owners kept their stores shut in La Paz on Monday as Bolivians took to the streets in a strike called by the opposition to protest what they say was fraud at elections giving President Evo Morales a fourth term. The country has been convulsed by protests since Oct. 20, when its Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) abruptly suspended the publication of results from an electronic count.

With 84% of votes counted, polling showed Morales was likely headed to a runoff with chief rival and ex-president Carlos Mesa. But when reporting of the count resumed after a nearly 24-hour pause, Morales had pulled off a razor-thin victory. The final, legally-binding vote tally gave him 47.08% of votes to Mesa's 36.51%, less than a percentage point over the 10-point lead needed to avoid a runoff and giving him another five-year term.

"Morales made a mistake," Mesa told protesters on Sunday, adding that discontent with the leftist president has been fermenting since voters rejected his attempt to lift term limits in 2016. A court ruling later gave Morales, who has been in office nearly 14 years and is Latin America's longest-serving head of state, the green light to run once again.

Protesters from opposing sides yelled and pushed each other in the streets of the capital, where many shops and schools were shuttered. The opposition-controlled mayor's office was also closed. "Coup supporters shall not pass," a group of pro-Morales protesters, including miners, shouted outside of the health ministry.

Mesa is "a bad loser" who incites violence, Vice President Alvaro Garcia told journalists earlier on Monday, after calling for people to go about daily activities as normal. Residents of La Paz, which has a million inhabitants, created road blockades using cars, wood planks, rope and even dumpsters in both the middle-class south and working-class north of the city, according to Reuters witnesses.

"We are demanding that our vote be respected," said Marta Colque, 32, who works at a daycare center. Morales wants to "stay forever," Colque said, as she stood at a blockade in the city center.

People in Santa Cruz, Bolivia's industrial center, have been on strike since Wednesday of last week. On Monday, Morales supporters in that city used rocks and sticks to confront police and opposition protesters amid clouds of tear gas, resulting in some injuries, according to Reuters witnesses. Authorities have not offered information about the number of people injured.

The Bolivian government said on Sunday it planned to agree to a deal with the Organization of American States within days to audit the election. Morales, 60, has said he will go to a second round of voting if irregularities are found, but also that rural supporters could put cities under siege if they keep protesting his re-election. The TSE and Morales deny any election fraud.

"The speed with which this is all happening is striking," said politics professor Marcelo Arequipa, of San Pablo Catholic University. While on Friday protesters were calling for a second round, now some are asking for the vote to be annulled, Arequipa said.

"'(Morales) must go' may come next," he said.

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