BOLIVIA’S coup President Jeanine Anez has dropped out of next month’s presidential elections after polls showed her scraping just over 5 per cent of the vote.

Ms Anez, who was appointed by the army after it forced just re-elected president Evo Morales from power last November, said she was withdrawing “to ensure there is a winner who defends democracy” against Mr Morales’s Movement for Socialism (MAS), which all polls continue to show in first place.

Polls this week showed that MAS candidate Luis Arce would win in the first round with 38.5 per cent of the vote, less than Mr Morales’s 47 per cent first-round win last year, which the opposition refused to accept.