Bolivia elections - 2019-2020 - Arce Victory

[Alex]

The Organization of American States called today for new elections to be held after stating to have found serious irregularities in the results and clear manipulations of the voting system and it could not verify the result.

BREAKING NEWS: Evo said a few minutes ago that he will follow the OAS recommendations and there will be a new first electoral round and that all members of the Electoral Court will be replaced by new ones chosen by the Legislative Assembly

Also a couple of days ago, the electoral auditing company (Ethical Hacking) selected by the Electoral Court to supervise the electronic part vote counting said that they couldn't "vouch for the integrity of the electoral results" due to a lot of irregularities and weaknesses of the systems they had to work with

[Alex]

Apparently no one knows who will rule the country until the new elections take place or when those elections will be held (there are rumors that it would take until the second hald of next year)

The Vice President, the President of the Senate (and Provisional President for a few hours) and the President of the House of Representatives also resigned

It's not known whether the Armed Forces will take the handle of the government or if the president of the Supreme Court will assume as president, as established by the Acephaly Law. The vice-president of the Senate (from the Democrats opposition party) claims that she should be the next provisional president

Fernando Camacho, the public face of the protests, will try to get to agree with the Armed forced to form a transitional government

The top prosecutor has ordered the arrest of all members of the Electoral Court

[Alex]

Mexico has offered Evo Morales political asylum

Jeanine Añez, the aforementioned Vice President of the Senate, has proclaimed herself as the next provisional president

[Alex]

Why didn't Morales appoint officers loyal to him to the top jobs in the military and police? Are there no leftists in the security services?

Oddly enough, General Kaliman - head of the Armed Forces - was seen as a staunch Morales loyalist, which is why his decisions not to intervene at first (against the police revolt) and later to force Morales's resignation was stunning.

I read an article which suggested that although Morales had loyalists leading both institutions he had A. offended the army through measures such as political indoctrination, B. offended most of the police by not taking their side over an internal dispute with their leadership, and C. didn't count on the military not wanting to be responsible of a bloodbath if they were used to crush the protests (when the military did attempt this in a separate instance a few years ago - before Evo -, the military leadership was tried and sent to jail in the aftermath).

That sounded somewhat reasonable, though the explanation may be found elsewhere.

Note: The article I mentioned is the one that was cited before my post.

Evo also lost the support from a few other vital sectors in the last few days, e.g. yesterday the Central Over Boliviana, the main trade union confederation and a vital ally of Morales, asked for Evo to resign and for the members of the Electoral Court to be removed and put in trial a few hours before the statements saying basically the same things

[Alex]

Morales will soon be traveling to Mexico, the country that offered him political asylum, in a Mexican military plane

He said in Twitter that he'll soon be back to Bolivia and he'll be stronger than ever, but in cases like this who knows what will happen

[Alex]

The Senate and the House have both unanimously passed a law calling for new elections under an exceptional one-time-only rules, neither Evo not his VP Álvaro García Linera will be allowed to run. No official date has been set AFAIK, but the new elections will take place somewhere in the next 120 days (and it has to be in 2020)

The results of the October elections are now officially void

Camacho said he may run for president

[Alex]

The Senate and the House have both unanimously passed a law calling for new elections under an exceptional one-time-only rules, neither Evo not his VP Álvaro García Linera will be allowed to run.

So Morales's party threw him under the bus?

Evo himself said that he wouldn't run for president this time many days before anyone else in the party said anything about his candidacy

[Alex]

The Senate and the House have both unanimously passed a law calling for new elections under an exceptional one-time-only rules, neither Evo not his VP Álvaro García Linera will be allowed to run. No official date has been set AFAIK, but the new elections will take place somewhere in the next 120 days (and it has to be in 2020)

The results of the October elections are now officially void

Mini update, Jeanine Añez has signed this bill, new elections will take place sometime between January [not very likely due to summer holidays] and May 2020. If there's a second round it will be less than 45 days after the first round

No official date has yet been established

[Alex]

The provisional government wants the first round of the elections to take place in March

Confirmed candidates:

Carlos Mesa - Gustavo Pedraza (same ticket as in the October elections)

Chi Hyung Chung, now without the support of the parties which were backing him that are now supporting newcomer Camacho

Luis Fernando Camacho, probably with Potosí (a southwestern and generally more pro-Evo department) protest leader Marco Pumari as VP candidate

Probable MAS candidates:

Andrónico Rodríguez, coca-leaf trade unionist

Adriana Salvatierra, provisional president for a couple of hours and former senator (she resigned to avoid being president during the hardest moment of the resignation/coup protests)

David Choquehuanca (trade unionist, Minister for International Relations 2006-2007, since then General Secretary of the ALBA [the Venezuela-led anti NAFTA/FTAA project])-Luis Arce (Economy Minister 2006-2017)

[Alex]

I'm kind of a bit torn on who I'd support, I actually was kind of rooting for Mesa last time just because Morales was in office for too long and had turned authoritarian though he did accomplish a lot of good early in his tenure. However since it won't be Morales on the ballot and the circumstances since then...it's kind of hard to root against MAS. I don't think Mesa is a terrible guy even though he's not a great fit ideologically for me (and honestly if he wins he'd probably still be the best South American President even if merely by default), but under these circumstances he could be indebted to terrible people.

I pretty much agree with this (even though my opinion of Mesa wasn't as positive as yours)

[Alex]

Probable MAS candidates:

Andrónico Rodríguez, coca-leaf trade unionist

Adriana Salvatierra, provisional president for a couple of hours and former senator (she resigned to avoid being president during the hardest moment of the resignation/coup protests)

David Choquehuanca (trade unionist, Minister for International Relations 2006-2007, since then General Secretary of the ALBA [the Venezuela-led anti NAFTA/FTAA project])-Luis Arce (Economy Minister 2006-2017)

Has Arce agreed to be Choquehuanca's running mate? Or is he a fourth potential candidate.

David Choquehuanca is 58, Arce is 56 and Salvatierra & Rodríguez are both "kids" around 30. Do you think MAS will prefer a young candidate or someone from Morales' generation?

The article I got it from said that Arce may be Choquehuanca's VP candidate, but a lot of other articles say they'd run separate

[Alex]

Yesterday the OAS released their final 96-pages-long report on the audits of the October elections

Their "conclusion is that there was "intentional manipulation" and "serious irregularities" that make it impossible to validate the results originally issued by the Bolivian electoral authorities."

"The report confirms that the intentional manipulation of the elections took place in two areas. First, the audit detected changes in the minutes and the falsification of the signatures of poll officials. Second, it was found that in the processing of the results the data flow was redirected to two hidden servers and not controlled by personnel of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), which made it possible to manipulate data and falsify minutes. "These servers, and the direct results from the votes "counted" in these, were also hidden from the auditing company

"To this are added serious irregularities, such as the lack of protection of the acts and the loss of sensitive material. The report also details a significant number of errors and indices."

"The audit findings also reveal the partiality of the electoral authority. The members of the TSE, who were tasked with ensuring the legality and integrity of the process, allowed the flow of information to be diverted to external servers, destroying all confidence in the electoral process."

The conclusion of the report is that “the manipulations and irregularities indicated do not allow for certainty about the margin of victory of the candidate Evo Morales over the candidate Carlos Mesa. On the contrary, based on the overwhelming evidence found, what can be affirmed is that there has been a series of intentional operations aimed at altering the will expressed at the polls.”

OAS Press Release: https://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-109/19

Complete Report (in Spanish): http://www.oas.org/es/sap/deco/Informe-Bolivia-2019/

[Alex]

Mini update:

Camacho confirmed that Pumari won't be his VP candidate , and the latter may run on his own for the presidency

[Alex]

MAS will announce their presidential candidate on on January 19

[Alex]

The Electoral Court has finally set the date for the new elections, May 3

[Alex]

Well things seem to be heating up

How is this related to anything happening in Bolivia?

[Alex]

MAS officially endorsed a David Choquehuanca - Andrónico Rodríguez presidential ticket

Party leaders and allies will meet with Morales, here in Buenos Aires, in a couple of days to make the official announcement

[Alex]

There were some last minute changes as Choquehuanca has now been demoted to VP candidate, and Luis Arce Will be the presidential candidate in the Evo-approved and now totally official MAS ballot

Morales said that Andrónico Rodriguez (30) is too young (read: inexperienced) to be president and that he is surprised that Andrónico was leading the polls. Rodriguez also didn't assists to the meeting with Evo in Buenos Aires, citing security reasons, which may have influenced the final decision

[Alex]

Camacho terminated his presidential campaign earlier today and called for unity in the anti-Evo camp

[Alex]

And in other news, Evo's candidacy for Senator has been rejected by the Electoral Court, as he doesn't meet the requirement of living in Bolivia (he's still in Argentina)

[Alex]

Time and time again, centrists, when forced to choose between socialism and fascism, pick fascism.

Morales is in no way an actual socialist, or even particularly close to being one

[Alex]

The elections won't take place on May 3 due to the coronavirus epidemic, no new date has been set

[Alex]

Do you think Jeanine Añez and those supporting her will take advantage of the coronavirus crisis to enforce an authoritarian way out?

?

Most presidents in the region (with the notable and surprising exception of Bolsonaro's total negligence) is getting more authoritarian by the day

[Alex]

Oh God, now that's a terrifying thought.

Is there actually an outbreak in Bolivia, or are they just afraid one might come?

Only 27 confirmed cases and no deaths, but Bolivia's healthcare system has never been particularly good and I wouldn't be surprised if the actual numbers are quite a bit higher

But no serious outbreak

[Alex]

The Electoral Court proposed (on March 26, but I wasn't paying attention for obvious reasons) that the elections should take place between June 7 and September 6, as always Congress has to set the actual date