Talk Elections

Happening today. Evo Morales, in office since 2006, is running for an unprecedented fourth term following the controversial Supreme Tribunal decision to strike down term limits (that were in the constitution).

Candidates

Evo Morales (MAS) -  Born into poverty, Evo Morales cut his political teeth as head of a union for coca growers which fought against War on Drugs attacks on their livelihoods. Ultimately this outlook took him into direct conflict with various Bolivian governments, which he saw as selling out a traditional Andean pastime at the behest of foreign Yankees. He took his union into the field of politics, eventually coming over to take over a largely defunct Falangist (yeah) party, MAS, and beyond his initial focus on legalizing coca to a broader socialist outlook. Luckily for him, the Bolivian business and political elite were dysfunctional, venal and dominated by whites in a very non-white country, and their response to him exploiting the crisis created after the Water and Gas Wars were shambolic: trying to expel him from Congress on dubious grounds, cycling through several hapless Presidents and rather blatantly trying to get the Bush administration to bail them out. In 2005, Morales won with a majority in the first round, a feat which he repeated in 2009 and 2014.

Evo Morales's Presidency, for all its leftist bluster, is very similar to the sort of social democracy we are familiar with elsewhere, avoiding calls to nationalize mines and pushing for pro-growth policies with largely balanced budgets. He took credit (fairly or unfairly, according to your political persuasion) for an extraordinary economic boom: cuts to poverty, inequality, unemployment, the deficit, debt and inflation all bolstered his popularity and allowed him to deflect from all other criticisms. This also led to social reforms: the elimination of illiteracy (by some measures, anyway), a modern constitution, recognition of indigenous peoples and the legalisation of coca. Even the end of the commodities boom hasn't been as disastrous as it was in Ecuador and Venezuela, owing to the aforementioned lack of deficits during the boom years. The ultimate legacy of MAS appears to be the creation of a truly indigenous middle-class, which isn't something to sniff at.

Not all find Morales so great. The country's lowland eastern provinces especially have been the centre of opposition to him, led by the wealthy and whiter province of Santa Cruz. The eastern lowlands have even made threats about secession, afraid of losing power to the lowlanders. The recent moves to quash terms limits in violation of his own constitution and a referendum have certainly stung. The country's strong focus on supporting extractive industries including within national parks has also caused a green backlash, especially after a disastrous fire this year that burnt vast swathes of the Chiquitano dry forest blamed on indiginous highlanders moving into the lowlanders turf and overly exploiting the land. And a recent rise in the deficit may portend future economic storms: should the President have done more to diversify the rather backward and non-industrial Bolivian economy? Even in the 2015 local elections, MAS saw some punishment, especially in middle-class urban indigenous areas that had once been the primary beneficiary of the President's pro-indigenous reforms (El Alto) - perhaps the ascetic President for the poor will become a victim of his own success?

Carlos Mesa (FRI or "Revolutionary Left Front") - One of the Presidents in the old Gas Wars, Mesa won some credit for breaking from the previous harsh treatment of protesters unleashed by his predecessor Goni upon the latter's resignation. Mild-mannered and intellectual, Mesa presents himself as a compromise figure who can unite the people who have always hated Morales with students, liberals and the new urban middle-class irritated by the term limits shenanigans without representing a drastic turn to the economic right (although Mesa pushes for increased foreign investment). He also is trying to court the green movement, opposing extractive industries in national parks. In case you are curious about Mesa's new party's name, it may not surprise you to know that the FRI, after previously being a front for a Maoist rebellion back in the day, seems (from my understanding) to have placed itself up to sale after the death of its longtime leader in 2017.

Oscar Ortiz "Bolivia Says No" - in third place is the Senator from right-wing stronghold Santa Cruz. Mr Ortitz represents a political tendency that is very much opposed to the, err, racial developments that have occurred under Morales. His candidacy has very much annoyed the Bolivian opposition, who wanted a united front, but his party wanted to cement its control over Santa Cruz province. Also very much an anti-Green, who seeks to export the "Santa Cruz model" (i.e. drill baby drill/more soy beans) to the entire country.

Chi Hyung Chung Christina Democrats - theocratic candidate who think women's rights and homosexuality are ruining Bolivia. Has seen the most success of the random candidates in polling.

If Evo does not get to 50% of the vote I assume Congress decides ?

nah run-off in December. He also avoids the run-off if he is over 40% and ten points clear of his rival, which is another reason why Otiz's campaign caused so much ire. (heck, his own VP candidate defected mid campaign and endorsed Mesa)

Chung is the child of missionary Korean Presbyterian parents and who was naturalized as a Bolivian citizen. Despite his right-wing views (he even is citing Park Chung Hee "Saemaeul" or New Villages programs as precedent for how he will develop Bolivia's economy), he was born in the famously left-leaning city of Gwangju.

Now that’s a fascinating candidate.

Mesa doesn’t seem too bad.

Results with 64% counted:
Evo Morales (Movement for Socialism) 45.3%
Carlos Mesa (Civic Community) 38.2%
Chi Hyung Chung (Christian Democratic Party) 8.8%
Óscar Ortiz (Bolivia Says No) 4.4%
Félix Patzi (Third System Movement) 1.2%
Virginio Lema (Revolutionary Nationalist Movement) 0.8%
Ruth Nina (National Action Party of Bolivia) 0.7%
Víctor Hugo Cárdenas (Solidarity Civic Union) 0.5%
Ismael Rodríguez (Front for Victory) 0.3%

Morales won the departments of La Paz, Potosí, Oruro, Cochabamba and Pando while Mesa won the departments of Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca, Tarija and Beni.

(great write-up Crabcake btw).

Glad to see the obvious racist go down in flames. Mesa definitely seems like a step in the right direction for the anti-Morales camp, and there are a lot of legitimate reasons to conclude that Morales' time has gone, but ultimately I'd still rather he won this one. I don't trust the opposition not to undermine his accomplishments.

With Morales’s camp claiming late votes from his rural base will put him over the 10%-gap threshold, the count has stalled at 83% (although I’ve also seen figures saying 86% or even 89%), with the percentages essentially unchanged (maybe a bit more for Ortiz and a bit less for Chi). The opposition is already crying foul and declaring victory by having forced a runoff. No word on when it’ll officially resume.

Chamber of Deputies

MAS - 64 (-24)
CC (FRI led list) - 54 (+54)
Christian Dems - 9 (-1)
MDS (Ortiz list) - 3

MAS narrowly loses majority

Senate

MAS - 19 (-6)
CC - 16 (+16)
MDS - 1
Christians - 0 (-2)

How much of a hindrance would this result be to each of Morales and Mesa, if they were to win the second round?

Hopefully Morales wins the Runoff. Let this be a painful lesson that MAS needs to start delivering to the Bolivian people stat, starting with running new blood.

The counts I’m seeing now have Morales at 46% and Mesa at 36% (Morales having juuuuust over a 10% lead), with 95% of the vote in. Seems fishy but not outside the realm of possibility.

Protests and repression all over the country. Mesa refuses to recognize Morales’s proclamation of victory in the first round.

Back in the good old days, you wouldn't need to pause the count for 24 hours to "find" enough ballots to put you over the top. Where is dedication? Where is passion? Where is respect for the craft?

I recall back in the 2016 Referendum the the later part of the count got more Evo friendly so it is not a surprise that the Evo lead gets larger toward the end of the count.

As he said, a lot of the 17% of remaining votes were from rural areas, which are strongly pro-Evo.

Results as of now are showing Morales up by 9.4% with 96% of the vote counted. The government has invited the OAS to supervise the vote, and Secretary General Luis Almagro has accepted.

https://computo.oep.org.bo/

And OF COURSE russian officials are involved in this (particularly, Rosatom). Goddamn, do they want participate in ALL world elections?

https://www.proekt.media/investigation/morales-rosatom-eng/

Can some one tell me more about CC (FRI led list)?!
Is FRI now more centrist than it used to be and what more parties are on that list?

What happened to Samuel Dorina and UN? They did not run at all?

Does have a party have to have a presidential candidate in order to stand in the congressional elections?

The OAS and EU are now asking that a second round be held; Evo’s still saying he won. I’m seeing different numbers in different places, some showing Evo winning outright and others not.

So the "official" results say no runoff. Yikes. I thought Evo was the lesser evil, but if he truly had a hand in rigging the votes he has to go.

Armed forces declares neutrality, says will "not clash with the people" after police "mutiny", protestors seize national television headquarters. (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/09/world/americas/bolivian-police-morales.html)

It's a step short of "the army stands with the people", but it's never a good sign for a regime when the army declines to reiterate its support.

Erica Chenoweth says when the police and military start to side with the protestors, regime change is imminent. Hopefully Bolivia doesn't fall apart because of this. Evo was no Chavez or Maduro, he hasn't been nearly as bad.

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

Let's see if this actually solves anything. Also, the OP should probably be changed lol

Good on Evo for doing the right thing. Now everybody needs to calm down and deescalate the situation. Make sure the authority in charge of the election is fully independent, and let it run its course.

Army chief calls for Morales to resign! (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-50369591?ns_campaign=bbc_breaking&ns_source=twitter&ns_mchannel=social&ns_linkname=news_central)

The President of the Chamber of Deputies and several government ministers have resigned, and the head of the national police has also called for Morales to go.

Rumors indicate Morales may have left the capital in the Presidential plane, destination unknown (likely to be one of his electoral bastions).

Morales has resigned! He's at a live press conference now.

If only somebody else would have the courage to resign instead of dragging his country to the mud for weeks.

If he had just accepted a second round he had a real shot at winning.  Instead he is now all washed up.

Hilarious indeed.

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

I'm glad we avoided the pro-Morales coup, but this is looking more and more like an anti-Morales coup...

I highly doubt the head of the Armed Forces would formally take the mantle of power, as blatant coups have fallen out of fashion. What is more likely is that someone completely impotent (like the President of  the Supreme Court) formally takes power whilst the army runs things behind the scenes.

History will doubtlessly judge Morales favorably for not clinging to power at the expense of his country's wellbeing.

Mexico has offered Evo Morales political asylum

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

I mean, it’s not as if Adriana Salvatierra was forced to resign. She could be acting president right now if she wanted to.

Yeah, and then accidentally die from the crossfires of the police.

This is a blatant and violent power grab by the former rulers of Bolivia, sadly there exists no militias to restore democracy in Bolivia at the moment.

Shame how Evo’s ego was too big to let literally anyone else in his party be President after 21F. It’s entirely his fault that his accomplishments are in danger now.

LOL

Seems to be a common point on leftist twitter that the US is backing the anti-Evo factions to force him out of power. Is there any truth to this? As of now I'm treating it with more than a little skepticism until proven

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?

I agree, but he may have been afraid of a betrayal by his successor as was the case in Ecuador where Moreno not only took a u-turn in policy but also investigated his predecessor for corruption.

According to El País, he did. Williams Kaliman is close to him. https://elpais.com/internacional/2019/11/10/actualidad/1573426533_008486.html

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.

They're going off of past history. But so far, there is nothing to pinpoint US involvement in any of this.

If anything, there seems to be a popular contagion effect going on in Latin America right now: Brazil, Chile, now Bolivia.

Ecuador, Haiti, Peru.

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

A coup by any other name is still a coup.

Morales will be judged well by history, despite his failings in more recent years.

the coup was made by Morales and his refusal to respect the constitution (and the referendum)

Argie from another board I'm on describing this:

Pretty much out of the cards now, but Morales even win a new election?

Of course not. They made it clear that they aren't going to allow an indigenous President ever again.

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

“They” weren’t able to stop him the first three times, so clearly “they” can’t be too influential. The only thing that’s changed here is the referendum and everything that came after that.

Áñez officially confirmed as acting president (by the constitutional court), new elections must be within 90 days.

Is the constitutional court a relatively impartial institution in Bolivia or is it a de facto third chamber of Congress like the SCOTUS?

This is the same court that allowed Evo to run in the first place by overturning the 21F referendum, which brought (naturally) many accusations of politicization from the opposition. This feels to me like something of a John Roberts type situation, trying to avoid the appearance of just being another branch of masismo, but I think someone else could answer that better than I could.

  Wonder how Putin feels about this, as he has been fairly pro-Morales I believe.  I saw an article recently about alleged Russian pro-Morales election interference fwtw.

AFAIK they now recognize the new temporary government, but some Latin American countries still don't.

People could have shown that they disliked that by not voting for him in the Bolivian election.

Which they did! And the early counts and numbers from independent election observers have shown that Morales would face an opponent in the second round. The later count was rigged (after no results being counted for 24 hours, which is suspicious) so that the difference between Morales and his main opponent exceeds 10% - which is according to the Bolivian electoral law enough for avoiding the second round.

If right wingers supported coups when leaders contravene their country's constitutional norms there would hardly be any right wing governments.

Later votes were from rural areas that overwhelmingly favour morales anyway.

Also morales offered to have another election, but the coup happened nonetheless to benefit the interests of Bolivia.

This is by far less worse than what happened in 2000 that got Bush elected in which he refused a recount.

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

Calling it now, these elections are going to be rigged in favor of the right. And the OAS will have nothing to say about it.

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

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

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)

What a polite way to put it.

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)

Not a very impressive line-up, that's for sure. MAS or Camacho winning would probably just start new problems of its own or make current ones worse (and/or validate their respective morally questionable actions and/or statements), and the less said about Chi Hyung Chung the better (gods, I wish Evangelical pastors never ran for President in Latin America).

So yeah, Mesa seems like the least depressing option. Which is depressing on its own, I might say.

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

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/

Mini update:

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

Pumari won't be Camacho's VP (allegedly due to some policy differences and because Pumari wanted to lead the ticket), so it appears likely that both of them will run for President instead. Camacho has picked up the endorsement of several minor parties, MAS is yet to pick a candidate, but they've chosen Morales to be their "campaign chief".

Also, the first poll came up, though the results don't seem very reliable:

Camacho: 16%
Pumari: 16%
Rodriguez (MAS): 16%
Mesa: 14%
Chi Hyung Chung: 10%

Lmao Camacho and Pumari are back together again. Latest poll had Rodríguez at 23%, Mesa at 21%, Camacho at 13%, and Pumari at 10%; MAS percentage dropped significantly when substituting David Choquehuanca, the apparent other most popular potential MAS candidate, for Rodriguez (down to about 10%) but that’s probably more due to name recognition than anything else.

MAS will announce their presidential candidate on on January 19

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

Well things seem to be heating up (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-media/britain-secretly-funded-reuters-in-1960s-and-1970s-documents-idUSKBN1ZC20H)

How is this related to anything happening in Bolivia?

The split of the opposition vote continues with the entry of former President Jorge Quiroga (2001-2002, Hugo Banzer's VP, lost the election to Evo) and Felix Patzi (was Morales's Education Minister in 2006-2007, went from MAS to the opposition), despite the current government's efforts to forge a united front against MAS.

Morales has made the news from Argentina with the leaking of a tape, in which Morales discusses the need to form "popular armed militias" (quoting Venezuela and Maduro as a direct example). Unsurprisingly, this has sparked quite a bit of controversy.

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

Opposition's pulverization can help Mesa's speech to be lesser evil as more electable candidate against MAS guy in runoff?

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

If MAS loses because of the further damage from this spat, it’s going to be on Evo for losing the country to ruin.

And, in (yet) another plot twist, President Añez announces she's running for a full term. The additional split of the opposition vote aside - are they actively trying to lose? - Añez appears to have started with her bid with several relevant former Mesa supporters behind her, so it appears Mesa will be the biggest loser from this.

Current field:
(Used the colors Bolivian parties currently use)

Luis Arce / David Choquehuanca (MAS)
Jeanine Añez / TBD (MDS)
Carlos Mesa / Gustavo Pedraza (CC)
Luis Fernando Camacho / Marcos Pumarí (Backed by PDC, ADN, UCS)
Chi Hyun Chung / TBD (Independent, former PDC)
Jorge Quiroga / TBD (MNR)
Félix Patzi / TBD (MTS)

Was not Camacho the candidate for MNR until now? And why is former ADN member Quoirga candidate for MNR now?

Mesa is already going on the offensive against Áñez and Morales is loving it.

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

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)

All going swimmingly, then?

What good informative journalism from the Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/26/bolivia-dismissed-its-october-elections-fraudulent-our-research-found-no-reason-suspect-fraud/)

Oops. Centrists batting against democracy yet again.

As some of us said at the time (and were, predictably, shouted down for it)

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

OK then, "left-populist"?

And neither is the opposition fascist (or at least most of the opposition).

They staged a coup.

I don't care if it's a coup if it's against a regime with dubious legitimacy (like Milošević regime at the time of 5. October Serbian democratic revolution).

Morales had just fairly won an election, as opposed to trying to steal it as Milosovic did, so no.

"Fair"?! Mysterious delays in counting, official results not matching results by independent observers...

 ‘No evidence of fraud’ in Morales poll victory, say US researchers (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/01/no-evidence-of-in-morales-poll-victory-say-us-researchers-bolivia)
So the only people contesting electoral fraud are the OAS, mired in connections with the American government, and local plantation and mining barons along with their “researchers“.

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

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

?

Oh God, now that's a terrifying thought.

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

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

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

A friend from Argentina told me last night the government was thinking about implementining ''state of emergency as prophylaxis'', ehich is not very different from the ''state of alarm'' we have in Spain but anyway it's something we wouldn't have accepted naturally weeks before. But Alberto Fernández and Pedro Sánchez have the legitimacy to implement emergency measures, which is not the case of Jeanine Añez.

The implications of a state of rmergency enforced by a president with problems of legitimacy and the army are worrisome, to say the least. Hopefully the position of Lady Coup is not very consolidated

(Btw my friend told me governors are sidelining Bolsonaro)

I won't forget all the "highly sensible and rational" liberals defending the coup here in a hurry.

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

Anez still the President & I wonder if she can somehow win the special election ?

I sincerely hope not.

They’re in the process of purging the civil service and putting their own people in, so I don’t doubt that they have the infrastructure to conduct voter fraud enough to win.

https://twitter.com/OVargas52/status/1263519580682625024
Posts and stories processing the same thing have been circulating a while this past week or so. Hopefully democracy can be restored from the hands of the putschists.

But remember folks, Morales is the real authoritarian. :)

He expanded the size of government. :(

Again, lets hear from all the "centrists" and "liberals" who supported this monstrosity.

Lol I am so owned
Seriously, is there any other source for the claim that Añez is attempting a military coup?

I’ll try and find a news article on this that is definitive. Most I’ve heard and seen is from editorials and twitter personalities.

Me2

#PrayForBolivia

New Archbishop of La Paz today. He's from an 80% indigenous area, went to seminary in Cochabamba, and was previously bishop of an almost entirely indigenous mission area up in the Andes. Pretty sure the previous guy supported Añez's (initial) coup.

Not that it's likely to change anything, but it does make one wonder if a message is being sent.

Most sources I’ve seen that are not political editorializations or newsletters from socialist groups aren’t reporting on the political happenings of Bolivia. Still, what I am seeing is that the government has still refused to let an election be held even as the Congress of Bolivia and grassroots organizations demands it to be held in a timely manner.

Such groups include farmers organizations as seen in this editorialized piece here (https://www.entornointeligente.com/bolivia-cochabamba-six-farmers-organizations-demand-elections/amp/)

I've read the military is pressing the MAS controlled Senate to approve some promotions (otherwise those men in arms will promote themselves) , Jeanine Añez is surrounded by corruption scandals and even Carlos Mesa says that she's bringing the country to collapse. The situation of Bolivia under this illegitimate president is deeply disturbing, to say the least

Well well, it turns out that the original OAS report that claimed fraud in vote counting was based on faulty statistical analysis - see https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/world/americas/bolivia-election-evo-morales.html.
If you dont remember, this was the one that made Morales agree to a new election, and an eventual coup leading to  right-wing dictator Anez.

Now the OAS is saying its moot - "Statistics don’t prove or disprove fraud. Hard evidence like falsified statements of polls and hidden I.T. structures do. And that is what we found". And the article says that the OAS consultant who did the work "did not share his methods or data with the authors of [this new study], despite repeated requests".

Makes what happened - and the almost gleeful collusion of so many in it - all the more shameful.

Some of us are not going to forget all this in a hurry.

I think Anez will win.

Thank you for your input.

(though you maybe meant not win, but "win"?)

It might be rigged for Luis Arce.

Áñez is going to rig it for MAS?

Merge please

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=340100.0

Will it be an election or an election type event?

We’ll find out the day of the polls.

There is a fresh poll with some 16,000 respondents, conducted by university organizations and some radio stations. It's apparently independent and possibly as reliable as you can get

Raw vote percentage (candidates over 1%)

Luis Arce (MAS) 29 2%

Carlos Mesa (CC) 19%

Luis Fernando Camacho (Creemos) 10.4%

Jeanine Añez 7.7%

Chi Hyun Chung (FPV) 3.2%

Jorge Quiroga (Libres 21) 2%

7.1 % will cast blank ballots; 10.6% opted for null votes; 9.8% don't know or don't answer

The estimation of valid votes is the following:

Arce 40.3%, Mesa 26.2%, Camacho 14 4%, Añez 10 6%, Chi Hyun Chung 4.4%, Quiroga 2.8%

Luis Arce and Carlos Mesa would qualify for a second round




https://www.la-razon.com/nacional/2020/09/16/encuesta-a-16-000-personas-en-el-pais-ratifica-a-luis-arce-como-posible-ganador-de-los-comicios/

I hope Añez wins.

There wouldn't be a second round on those numbers since Arce is above 40% and more than 10 points ahead of Mesa.

If Anez wins, the latter.

I think Añez will do way better than what the polls say and win.

Right, I forgot that when posting. Thank you for the correction



Your faith is worthy of a better cause, but hope is the last to die

We got it the first three times you posted it.

There's been rumors today that Añez is preparing to drop out of the race to give Mesa a better chance against Arce and MAS. It's been alleged the decision was taken, but nothing confirmed yet (wouldn't be really surprised if it didn't turn out to be true).

It's been confirmed, Añez is dropping out.

Liek dis if u cri evry tiem

Lmao

I have just heard that in the news. Añez has also declared the state of emergency to tackle the Chaco wildfires. Evo Morales refused to do so during the terrible wildfires past year; his management of the crisis was possibly a contributing factor to his fall. The state of emergency allows international aid

They won't be posting it any more, though :P

And another one bites the dust, former President Jorge Quiroga has also withdrawn, citing the need to consolidate the anti-MAS vote behind Mesa. It's only a week until the first round.

So the right are a bit worried they might lose?

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1315488648410755072

It is quite plausible they won’t have to rig it that bad in order to get ahead in a second round.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-wHQpnSLe8&list=FLBZqnIPPjMvxL1cq6anDjYw&index=2&t=737s

I saw "Our brand is Crisis" which was about the 2002 election when it came out in 2005.  Mesa shows up several times in the film.

Note that, for some baffling reason, the America Elects account's methodology, IIRC, removes undecideds and reallocates the voting %s.

On Saturday night, Bolivia's electoral board announced it would not release preliminary results that were expected on Sunday evening. It is unclear when the first official results will be available.

How convinient

And yet the US media was all over accusations that Morales cheated last time, including now-discredited OAS reports.

This time, not a peep. Not even much mention of the election.

The number of "liberals" who supported that coup - wallet inspection in its purest form.

How do you say "se cayó el sistema" in Quechua?

It's going on?

The fix is in. Each member of the Electoral Board has a shiny new Tesla in their garage.

As jaichind mentioned, the rapid count was canceled; it didn't pass reliability tests, so they were concerned about candidates declaring victory based on the results of the rapid count only to not win in the final count. The UN and EU observer missions signed off on the decision to cancel.

Official results are trickling in
https://computo.oep.org.bo/?fbclid=IwAR0Ouoecvm-kOhiEETej8A300MH2heMo3GCCErFUKGbx8TfKCdAzxpMkOTg

Bolivia TV stations are saying that the Electoral Court has prohibited taking photos of the electoral acts (vote tallies at each polling station), which is irregular.

Talking about Bolivian TV stations, here's a livestream if you want to watch:

ayyyyyy lmao

()

Tbf they're probably just overloaded by demand to see the results, but still.

Some overseas results are in and it shows an interesting pattern of where the rich (and white) expats go vs where the poor emigrants go.  For example, from what's counted so far, MAS is getting 83% in Argentina, 71% in Brazil and 50% in Spain, while CC is getting 73% in Germany and 41% in Italy (but with another 41% to Creemos in the latter).

1.5% in, Mesa (CC) leads with 55% against 37% for Arce (MAS) and 7% for Camacho (Creemos).

Now, it's tempting to go for the Mexican comparisions, but it's worth noting that in 1988, after it became clear that the election was rigged, there was a massive, massive wave of indignation and protests, but it eventually came to an end.

However, back then, the PRI had advantages the current de-facto-one-woman-junta doesn't. First, the candidate that the election was rigged against was until recently a member of the PRI and could be negotiated with - indeed, he was negotiated with and accepted the result, though he wasn't very happy with it. Second, Mexicans were used to sham elections and so many people simply shrugged and thought 'okay, it's just one more stolen election, like many others'. Third, there wasn't that much of an ideological (or ethnic!) divide - the opposition presented themselves as "we're like the government, but less authoritarian and more principled!". These things are how they managed to reach a negotiated solution.

Point being, if the right really does win and it becomes clear that it was because the numbers were cut out of whole cloth, something is going to happen, and it's not going to be pretty.

Lol so you’re telling me that after one year of expelling the guy who won last elections because of a system glitch during vote counting now the same thing is happening again? Don’t tell me they didn’t have time to make this as transparent as possible and didn’t know people would pay attention to every minimal detail...

This is giving me Bolivia 2019/US Iowa Democratic Caucus 2020 vibes. Why no exit polls this time and why does it take so long?

Morales declared victory for MAS based on their internal counts.

https://twitter.com/camilateleSUR/status/1318038746898567168

Wait, what? Is this official or it’s that false poll that was released earlier and going around? I’m so confused by everything going on here.

I believe these are the official exit polls.

https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1318042382777176065

Thanks, you’re right. It was a different poll indeed that I saw but with not too different numbers, which made me confused.

Well, this shows a clear trend. Let’s see if the actual results will match up lol

What with these exit polls, I'm becoming increasingly skeptical of the official results. They're still showing CC leading by over 15 points.

Does Bolivia require a runoff if no one gets over 50% or is it first past the post?

They only have 5% of the vote counted.


It requires a runoff unless someone gets over 50% OR over 40% with a 10% margin of victory, which was the key point of debate in 2019 (whether Morales got slightly over or slightly under).

Wow! Anez herself saying Arce is the likely winner. Have to say, I am shocked they are going to let this happen.

https://twitter.com/JeanineAnez/status/1318048552191483904

Everything is going so much better than expected :')

EDIT: If these polls are accurate this also seems to demonstrate fairly significant underpolling of MAS. Any ideas why/how this could be fixed?

What was Mesa's actual ceiling?

MAS does better with rural voters (a category that overlaps substantially with indigenous voters). They tend to be undersampled for obvious technological reasons.

Apparently Luis Arce is set to win by a landslide and I think it's better this way, because a tight result would have raised suspicions of fraud. Evo Morales and Luis Arce are claiming victory. Carlos Mesa has not conceded yet, but Jeanine Añez congratulated the winners. Hopefully this means there's going to be a peaceful transition.

This election might represent a change of cycle in Latin America. I know that Macri lost a year ago, but Argentina is a case apart

Today we learned it was a coup after all and that Bolivians wanted socialism back.

The US doesn't put the same effort into regime change as they used to.

Would not the scale of Arce's victory plant the seeds of future conflict?  Morales would now want to come back and become de facto president.  But Arce will read is mandate which would be greater than the 2019 Morales vote as his own personal mandate and push back against Morales. 

It’s not only Argentina and Bolivia going Left after a brief period of right wing government. Ecuador has elections next year and the candidate supported by Correa apparently is favored to win; Chile appears to be in a pre-revolutionary state after the protests last year and they’re at it again and burning churches this time, not to mention the constitution referendum and elections where the communist candidate is doing well are stuff yet to come; even Colombia which is the most strongly right wing country of South America appears to very slowly become more Left-friendly...

The trend has already been slowly shifting back and the massive unrest and protests during 2019 in multiple countries kicked the ball. Which ironically, was during the same time the Bolivia 2019 election thing was going on but I saw that as a late manifest of the right wing surge that had already dominated everywhere else in the continent with the exception of Bolivia lol (Venezuela is a special case).

Basket case, more like.

Honestly surprised they “allowed” MAS to win, but it’s great anyway. This is a fantastic repudiation of an egregious coup.

The peronist movement in Argentina is cross-ideological, while the MAS in Bolivia is leftwing and indigenista. In the case of Argentina, more than a "turn to the left" it happened that peronists came back. Granted, Macri is to the right of Fernandez. But the new president strikes as a pragmatist, not as a leftwing populist in the fashion of CfdK. There were two key factors in the outcome of the Argentinian elections: the crumbling economy and the unity of the peronist movement, with the right-leaning caudillos rallying behind a consensus candidate alongside the Cristina supporters. That's why I said Argentina is a special case.

But yeah, with all the exceptions and national particularities it seems that the conservative trend is reversing. In the case of Bolivia, I'd say the 2019 election was basically a tie between Morales and the opposition. The MAS popularity was eroding because of its long stay in power, some corruption scandals or the Chaco fires, but it was still a robust movement that controlled the legislative chambers. This election proves that the MAS represents a majority of Bolivians. I just hope that Evo Morales steps aside and backs Luis Arce, in order that the latter governs successfully.

Apparently the uribista movement is not in good shape in Colombia. I'd say that the deepest black holes right now are in Venezuela and Brazil. The outcome of the US elections will have a great mpact in the region, obviously
 

All these Center-Right candidates dropping out to concentrate the anti-MAS vote only to have MAS win a majority proves the old Nixon adage: "if you hear about a Stop X movement, put your money on X"

This is not exactly quite right. Morales, and the majority of his party, are social democrats apart of the same international as the Democratic Party. His tenure, while providing sweeping change, made Bolivia more attractive to FDI from the Cappy Core. Out of all this, the foreign elites and comprador porky still saw it more attractive to coup them. Huh, seems very discouraging to democrats and free talking points for establishing controlled systems like Cuba, don’t it?

This is a victory for muh socialism (CONDOLENCES, LANDLORDS), muh Pachamama (CONDOLENCES, TRADCATS), and "laying off that whiskey and letting that cocaine be" (CONGRATS, JOHNNY CASH). Great honer!

I'll have to play 'Cocaine Blues' in memory of the man in black

Results still very slow to come in apparently? Won't totally believe it until Arce has "officially" won......

Mesa concedes!

https://twitter.com/carlosdmesag/status/1318211422577459200

https://twitter.com/unitelbolivia/status/1318206876761399296

Something tells me General Kalimantan is going to be in a bit of trouble very soon.

The  Bolivian boliviano fell almost 5% from right before the exit poll came out and now.

Great! Now there needs to be a purge. Hopefully MAS will realize that establishing lasting socialism on a large scale without doing anything "authoritarian" is impossible.

MAS is a political party aiming to represent a people who've been struggling for 400 years bruh. They don't need your help.

Yes, Evo went from 61% to 47% in the past two elections because he wasn’t authoritarian enough. If he’d been more repressive he could have gone even higher.

Great news. MAS is a great party. Bolivia is a great country!

MAS militants blockaded hospitals to get these elections, how much more militant could you get lol

Yes, and said people probably aren't as worried about muh liberal democratic norms as Western radlibs.

Or....maybe it's uhhh. Human decency?

Sure. Not only far-right people supported that coup.

I have this perception watching Brazilian mainstream media. Many journalists have criticism on Trump and Bolsonaro, but they refused to admit that what happened in Bolivia in 2019 was a coup. They don't use the G-word (golpe) to refer to the events in Bolivia in 2019. They speak about "political crisis". Actually, the 2019 Bolivian coup was much more similar to a classic third world coup than the coups of Honduras 2009, Paraguay 2012 and Brazil 2016. According to Brazilian mainstream media, Morales was a bigger threat to democracy than the policemen, the soldiers and the religious groups who took part in that uprising.

Seeing lots of anger at Camacho for "splitting the vote" and being a supposed MAS stooge on right-wing Bolivian twitter today. Not really sure why this is a prevalent belief since it looks like Arce got over 50% but it is out there.

Would have been a valid complaint if Arce was at 46% and Mesa got 34% and Arce won due to the >10% difference but with the expected MAS majority it doesn't make sense to me.

You always need a scapegoat when you lose big.

Liberals are right wing. That was always my understanding in my whole life. I’m actually more sympathetic to some conservative figures (who are at least honest about their stances) than lots of Brazilian liberals who l always thought were robots or something.

Results keep trickling in and Arce has finally pulled ahead.

()

Also, the President-Elect is rad as hell:

https://twitter.com/mcotteri/status/1318204966603874304

They all are quite charming in their own way, unlike how rare it is with career politicians from upper class backgrounds.

Wow, that jacket is amazing

President elect of the Rainbow Nation, that is to say the Plurinational State of Bolivia

I mean, technically yes? See: Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, etc

Of course the "real" approval would crater, but the election results would show Evo winning 99.9% or whatever

It would also be awful for the Bolivian people

Speculation the final result (whenever it actually arrives) will be even more decisive than exit polls indicated.

What's fascinating and telling about the right's mindset is that for a long time, until September even, they seem to have assumed that just the symbolism of snatching back power combined with inconsistent application of force and propaganda would somehow render the indigenous, who they clearly see as peasant hordes hardly better than animals, docile.

Yep, exactly. That's how I've felt about America too. "Liberals" in America are closer to conservatives than leftists, that's why they had seizures on TV when Bernie won a primary and later thanked the Republicans for nominating Barrett for SCOTUS.

Don’t call it a comeback.

The best of all was Nasser: he managed to get 100.0% (rounded). Even among authoritarians I think it's quite a feat to get re-elected 7,000,000 for vs. 65 against.

I tend to prefer Saddam Hussein myself, who managed to get exactly 100% of the vote, with 100% turnout.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Iraqi_presidential_referendum

There is also the Liberian election of 1927, where the winner won 243000-9000; thanks to getting an insane 1680% turnout

Wow, I didn't know about any of those two. I have just seen that the Liberian result has been called "the most rigged election ever", and rightly so.
I mean that's almost funny, the 1929 Italian election where the PNF took 98.4% of the votes feels just so free and fair in comparison.

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1197793248225267712

An honest indictment of all American interventions, which should be obvious and non-controversial

As much I oppose MAS and Morales I agree with Tulsi's assessment. 

Too bad she's never there to condemn Russian interventionism.

I love Tulsi despite her flaws.

66.4% reporting, Arce at 51.31%. Given what's likely out there among that remaining third...wouldn't be surprised to see Arce hit 55%.

At this point I’m mainly rooting for him to beat Evo’s 53% from 2005.

Almost certainly will happen.

---

70.6% reporting; Arce now at 52.02%.

76.6% reporting and Arce is now at 52.93%; Mesa about to drop below 30%.

He just did, he’s at 29.98% now.

Do the Mennonites vote? If yes who did they vote for?

Chi Hyun Chung is an ethnic Korean and Presbyterian clergyman who is running on the right-wing Christian Democratic ticket. If the Mennonites vote, Chi seems like their closest match.

Not just ethnically Korean, he’s an immigrant. (Not that that matters, of course.)

86.2% reporting and Arce is now at 54.01%.

So . . .

How ya feelin' CIA?

()

I think we can safely say he has won now :)

Acknowledgements to CraneHusband:

There are Bolivians in Italy?

Only 5,859 (that have a right to vote), so they're easy to miss, I imagine.

That's probably a good thing because they seem like massive HPs. 41% for Camacho, yeesh.

Yeah I had never heard of any. Actually Liguria - where I live - is the region with the highest share of Latin American immigrants in Italy, but they are mostly Ecuadorian, Peruvian, or Dominican.

If only some of you would apply the skepticism you had here to the entirety of the farce that is the "liberal international order", and see that what happened here was the rule, not the exception. But I guess that's too scary a thought for most.

Democracy is indispensable to socialism

Or you could simply observe that the actual record of socialism *without* democracy is just a tad sub-optimal.

Uhhhh. The % of precincts counted had reached 99.96% last night, but this morning it's been going down (99.86 a few hours ago, 99.79 now). Any clue what's going on with that?

Final results:
Arce (MAS) 55%, 73 seats in the chamber, 21 seats in the senate
Mesa (CC) 29%, 41 seats in the chamber, 11 seats in the senate
Camacho (Creemos) 14%, 16 seats in the chamber, 4 seats in the senate

Camacho had 14%. Similar to AfD in Germany and smaller than Le Pen in France.

You're clearly a smart guy, judging by what you write, but it would be good for you if you looked at different countries through different lenses, if you know what I mean. Bolivia and Germany or France have, frankly, nothing in common (besides the fact that they hold elections, and even that comes with an asterisk). Too much comparative politics is hazardous for your health ;)

Camacho appears to be the leader of a rebel province. His base of support is heavily concentrated in the Santa Cruz department. Results:

Camacho 45 14%
Arce 36.14%
Mesa 17 33%

The CREEMOS candidate got 704k votes in his home base of Santa Cruz and 848k overall

These results reveal the markedly regionalist character of his peculiar movement

Indeed, Creemos is a regionalist (and very right-wing) party. Santa Cruz and its capital, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, is the center of Bolivia's "white" (more like "mestizo but with less indigenous blood", but let's not get into that) culture and unsurprisingly a long-time right-wing stronghold. There is a small but growing movement to give this part of the country more autonomy or, on the fringes, even independence. You can read more about it here: Bolivia: a tale of two countries (https://mondediplo.com/2020/07/06bolivia). Its members are... curious creatures - the most hilariously every-negative-stereotype-about-racist-right-wing-whites moments from that article:


[snark] Unsurprisingly for people who want to create a Volkstaat, they also have their own knockoff Weerstandsbeweging (presumably a similar clown car of morons like the original thing, for now):


This is not from a Dickens book:


lolbertarianism.jpg

Now 99.27%. Anyone know what's going on?

If I had to guess, they’re trying to ensure that MAS won’t have a senate supermajority

I doubt it. It's 99.29% now and if you compare with the 99.96% count MAS has gained 0.1%, CC has gained 0.09%, Creemos has lost 0.19% and Chung's National Action Party of Bolivia has gained 0.01%.

Results by municipality:

()

Are there any demographic differences between Camacho and Mesa supporters?

Autonomist or separatist movements in areas wealthier than the country as a whole really just cannot ever be trusted. Tale as old as time.

The dude wearing a US Army hat next to Camacho is the icing on that s**t cake.

Continuing to fall, now down under 99%. But yeah, it seems that the precincts affected by this are more right-leaning ones, so it doesn't sound like Arce's lead is at risk (unless the right-wingers are suddenly "finding" tons of new ballots, but that seems unlikely at this point).

Still would love to hear from someone familiar with the counting process if they have an idea what's going on.

All of them have people, which may have some differences in specific things but are more similar in essence than not because it’s related to human instinct.

And judging by other examples, a passionate base of between 10%-20% for populist right seems about right. Too much, but controlled. When it breaks that bubble it’s when things get more dangerous.

Amazing stuff. I love this quote referring to the invasion of the barbarians


It's easy to get an idea of the racist mindset of the Santa Cruz mestizo elites and the ongoing demographic conflict. You can see in the map the rural areas of Santa Cruz, where the collas from the highlands have settled, vote for the MAS

Looks like they're just correcting minor errors in some actas. They're back at 99.82% and the difference to the original 99.96% count is now MAS +0.03%, CC +0.02%, Creemos -0.05% and PAN +0.01%. The 88.42% turnout rate hasn't been adjusted so the total number of votes should be nearly identical.

Yep! We finally have the complete, 100% count.

Arce 55.10% (+8.02)
Mesa 28.83% (-7.68)
Camacho 14.00% (new)
Hyun Chung 1.55% (-7.23)

What a beautiful triumph. And it has important policy implications: based on the 2019 results, MAS would have lost its majority in the lower house, but with this numbers they should hold a comfortable majority. So in a way, the coup has arguably strengthened MAS' hand (in addition to fostering a change in leadership which is probably healthy in and of itself for the party). Of course, the price to pay was one year of thuggish crackdowns, corruption and incompetence that have brought the country to its knees. So I'm definitely not saying it was worth it. Still, if there's one person who can fix this mess, it's probably the economy minister who oversaw the boom of the past decade and a half.

Checkmate, golpistas. The Bolivian working-class has reclaimed its freedom.

Lol
You know what I am going to say.

UmbertoBossi.jpg

Lega's the obvious example in Europe, yeah, but I also tend to think "woke" rich-region separatisms like Catalonia's are, to use the parlance of our times, kinda sus for this reason. To say nothing of the Calexit/Jesusland-map fantasists here in the US.

Well yeah, I agree.

By the way, we've already talked about this a lot, but I can't resist reposting my new favourite quote, which the cato-camachistas who are Saving Christianity From Those Idolatrous Indians™ surely love.


More seriously: the people in that article are a level of stereotypical posho-classist-asshole-ness which I don't think I had ever seen before.

When Antonio linked me to Estrella's post that I was originally responding to yesterday my first reaction was "So it's suburban Veneto but with the racial politics of Alabama? Sounds like a delightful place."

Not stereotypical at all sadly, they sound like regular Latin-American right-wing elites I know in regards to the “poor and uneducated”, with the only difference there’s the additional contempt for Indigenous elements because it’s Bolivia in this case. It’s not uncommon to see people using their social status to point out why they should have more privileges than others.

It’s no casual thing that class divide is the main defining political factor in most places in the region. It’s also why the left tends to be stronger with the poor, because of inequality sure, but I don’t think there’s other regions in the world where the rich reach such levels of awfulness in such an open way. It’s declared war. In other places the elites still suck but I feel like they try to pretend much better they’re good humanitarians, etc.

Basically, sometimes it’s hard not going full communist around here lol.

(Looks at GDP)

NicolaSturgeon.jpg

That's true. Latin American elites suck: take a look in Mexico, Brazil or Argentina. On the other hand, overt racism, classism and sexism are increasingly widespread. There are more fans of Bolsonaro in my country than I would like to admit

Is there some correlation between religion and such sentiment? eg, do rich Catholics, Pentecostals, and non-religious differ?

Not really, at least I don’t think so. There are wealthy Catholics, evangelicals and atheists just like there poorer ones. Evangelicals tend to be more conservative on specific social issues but that isn’t related to class, you’ll find these people in all spectrums of status.

There were definitely religious appeals involved in the coup against Morales because indigenous people in Bolivia are often crypto-pagan pachamamistas, but my impression is that most Bolivian Christians didn't actually find those appeals, like. compelling.


Not that I'm a huge fan of Scottish nationalism either (sorry), but isn't Scotland slightly poorer than the rest of the UK (more because of how much richer Greater London is than everywhere else than because it's poorer than the other parts of England)?

The bounty of the North Sea (oil rather than fish) complicates the picture at present, but, don't worry, in the not so distant future it certainly won't.

In Scotland the picture is also complicated because whilst the price of oil means Scotland can be either richer or poorer than the UK median, there are parts of Scotland that always subsidise the rest of the UK and parts where the converse is true.

Luis Arce is president. Democracy is officially back in Bolivia. <3

Muh savages 1
Santa Cruz elites and other assorted ghouls 0

<3

The following is a famous Italian song appropriate whenever the left-wing wins:
https://youtu.be/Ao0eLUeUQC0

"Liberals" who almost invariably prefer fascism to socialism - also 0 :)

Nice to see MAS back in. Arce over Mesa and Creemos any day.

Honestly nice to see Morales back in Bolivia. Probably the President that did the most for Bolivia's people in its history.

Interesting update on this:

1. Apparently my girlfriend is vaguely acquainted with an adopted girl from Bolivia. From her countenance, she looks mestiza.

2. I've found out where all the Bolivians here are: Bergamo. Literally. Of all Bolivian citizens in all of Italy, a whopping 25% live just in the city of Bergamo, where they constitute the largest immigrant group and ~3% of the total city population. I guess it makes sense that they voted so much for Camacho then, since the province of Bergamo is ground zero for cattoleghismo.

Like, why? I went looking for reasons and I tried but didn't find anything. What I did find, however, were some irrelevant but still hilarious things:

1. Three countries have a consulate in Bergamo: Switzerland (okay, it's in Northern Italy), Bolivia (there are a lot of their people there) and... Malawi? Is it just that rent in downtown Milano is so expensive? Why do they even have a consulate outside the capital?

2. There's a Facebook page called Comunidad boliviana en Bergamo and, to surprise of literally no-one, they post thing like this (warning: fantastically unashamed racism)

()

2a. "un alteñ@", yay woke white supremacy!

2b. "escalteño" is not even a pun, you're just sticking words together, idiots.

3. I think you have the correlation backward; they aren't voting for Camacho because they live among their ideological soulmates, but because they're (probably) mostly from Santa Cruz. That would partly explain why there are so many of them there, they could have chosen Bergamo because of an existing santacruceño community, but something must have led to creation of that community in the first place.

1. I have no idea about Malawi, lol.

2. oh my God I can't. That's both massively racist and a bad joke even aside from that.

3. I was actually joking on what is probably a coincidence.

Is Arce a red fash tankie now that he's removed some generals that were loyal to the coup?

I don't notice many people claiming that tbh. Or is this satire? ;)

Apparently the new environment minister is some sh**tty agro dude. Big oops but not super shocking from MAS tbh.

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.

Oh. Either way, Camacho is a shoo-in, I imagine?

I imagine, yes. As is Albarracín.

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.

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.

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.

MAS, both the left and right factions, made grave mistakes appeasing the multinationals and landowners. Given that these are small splits regionally, it shouldn’t matter much.

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.

What a shame. His voice was more needed now than ever. I hope others take up the fight - MAS needs to be kept on its toes on Indigenous issues.

Rest in peace.

Rest in peace.

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

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


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.

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.