A constitutional referendum will be held in Bolivia on February 21. The referendum will take place in order to change the 2009 constitution to allow a president to serve three consecutive five-year terms instead of two. If approved, incumbent Evo Morales will be able to run in 2019 for a fourth consecutive term as president (his first term in office doesn't count as he was firstly elected under a previous constitution).
The constitutional change put to referendum was approved in September 2015 by the Plurinational Legislative Assembly after a petition signed by various social and indigenous organizations. The petition was initiated after the April 2015 local elections which were lost by the ruling Movement towards Socialism (MAS).
According to its proponents, the extension of presidential term limits would permit Morales to complete the implementation of his political agenda, the so-called Patriotic Agenda 2025. In fact, the MAS is afraid to lose the next presidential election (to be held in 2019) if Morales isn't the party's candidate. Indeed, there is currently no apparent heir to the president and, while Morales remains popular, its party is no longer invincible as proved by the last local elections.
The “Yes” side is supported by the president, the government, the MAS, and various unions and indigenous organizations. Several mayors from the far-left indigenous Movement for Sovereignty (MPS) are also supporting the constitutional change.
The “No” side is supported by right-wing parties like the Social Democrat Movement (MDS), the National Unity Front (UN) and the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR). Several veteran right-wing politicians actively campaigned for the “No”, among them being former presidents Carlos Mesa and Jorge Quiroga.
The “No” side is also supported by leftist politicians and militants who grew disillusioned with Morales. Among the latter are former ministers under Morales (like Félix Patzi, the center-left governor of La Paz Department) and leftist militants from the Potosí Civic Commitee (COMCIPO), a local alliance of unions and social organizations that staged protests and strikes against the government in Potosí Department in July 2015.
Over the past days, the campaign turned very ugly. Firstly, it was revealed that Morales fathered in 2007 a child with Gabriela Zapata, a young woman who is currently
working for a Chinese company that has received government contracts. While Morales acknowledged he had a child (who died shortly after birth) with Zapata, he denied any influence-peddling in favor of the Chinese company.
Yesterday – the last day of the campaign – a demonstration against the right-wing (UN) mayor of El Alto degenerated: a group of protesters burned the El Alto municipal office. Six people died in the building, intoxicated by smoke. The El Alto mayor blamed the fire on militants of the MAS who had, allegedly, set fire to suppress evidence of corruption of the former El Alto's MAS mayor. For its part, the government denounced a “false flag” operation by opposition infiltrators.
Latest polls are all over the place:
Captura Consulting, February 11Yes 44.4%No 41.1%Don't know 14.6%
Mori, February 12Yes 40%No 40%Don't know 11%
Ipsos, February 12Yes 40%No 41%Don't know 15%
Mercados y Muestras, February 14(apparently the only poll made after the Zapata scandal erupted).
Yes 28%No 47%Don't know 25%
