Bolivia elections - 2019-2020 - Arce Victory

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Morales needs to accept that he's not in charge anymore and that Bolivian socialism can go on without him. He's done an immeasurable amount of good for the country, and yes, by every right he should be president right now, but the fact that the country in 2019 was vulnerable to a right-wing coup is at least in part a testament to his obstinacy, and MAS can only fully recover by being willing to turn the page.

I agree (although perhaps not by every right; if Trump pulled anything like Evo did with 28F people would be calling for his head and rightly so), and I think a lot of the MAS base does as well.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

2021 departmental and local elections are coming up. MAS is seeking to retain and expand its governorships but is seeing division between Evo (back in Bolivia and party president) and more “renovation”-themed forces in the party, with the party bases claiming that Evo’s imposing his own candidates in the primaries. Luis Fernando Camacho is running for something but we’re not sure if it’s the mayor of Santa Cruz or the governor. Waldo Abarracín (university president and former ombudsman) is the opposition candidate for mayor of La Paz.

Speaking of this, some dissident masistas and local social organizations have broken from the official party candidate in the (majority-Aymara) city of El Alto (Zacarías Maquera) to support Eva Copa (former Senate president during Áñez’s term), alleging more meddling and dedazos by Evo. Copa herself has not yet commented.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Copa has officially split from MAS (temporarily, she says) and is running for mayor of El Alto for Jallalla, Felipe Quispe’s vehicle for his own candidacy for governor of La Paz. Quispe, for those who are unaware, is a longtime indigenous activist and leftist critic of Evo.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Felipe Quispe died of a heart attack two days ago. He left a very long and historic legacy of fighting for the indigenous people(s) of Bolivia until the very end.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Waldo Albarracín (CC candidate) has dropped out of the race for mayor of La Paz.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Felipe Quispe was... surely an interesting character. Rest in peace.

Waldo Albarracín (CC candidate) has dropped out of the race for mayor of La Paz.

Ironic since you called him a shoo-in one month ago. But why did he drop out?

His official story seems to be that he doesn’t like how people are campaigning during a covid wave, although it may also be that he’s not actually as much of a shoo-in as he hoped and I thought. I still think the opposition will win, since the current mayor split from MAS and still managed to win in 2010 and 2015, plus it’s of course a more urban area, but it looks like Albarracín turned out not to be the unifying figure the leaders of the opposition imagined him as.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

There are polls, by the way, but I choose not to believe them because I can’t find enough to average them and I don’t know how any biases or particularities would work at this level.