What is the role of the else operator in conditional structures?

The else operator in Python conditional statements is used to handle the case when all previous if and elif conditions have not been met. It is a block of code that executes by default if none of the conditions are true.

Example:

x = 10
if x > 20:
    print("Greater than 20")
elif x == 20:
    print("Equal to 20")
else:
    print("Less than 20")

Here, if x is not greater than 20 and not equal to 20, the else block will be executed. This guarantees that there is always handling for all possible cases.