Elections 2019: Candidates, Political Organizations and Polls
MABB ©
Here is a look at the players taking part in this year's general elections. I will present here the candidates and the political organizations.
As a brief reminder, the Bolivian political party system is dominated today, in this plurinational era, not by political parties, as understood in the western sense, but by political organizations. This is a more general term including formal political parties as well as alliances, citizens groups, social movements and other groupings with the intention to take part in elections with candidates.
There is a historical background for this. Briefly explained, it has to do with a law passed in the 1990s allowing other types of political organizations to take part in elections. It also has to do with the political events leading up to the rising of Evo Morales and the MAS, when the population lost trust on what Bolivians know today as the traditional political parties. Since then, many politicians have had to reinvent themselves and in order to gather political strength, they have had to forge alliances amongst the various interest groups in Bolivian society.
Having said that, I am presenting in the following table a list of all the registered and officially listed candidates to the offices of president and vice-president, along with their respective political organizations.
In the list of political organizations, the only traditional political party left is the MNR, and perhaps the UCS and the PDC, which have played a much less significant role in Bolivian politics as the MNR. That much is for sure. The rest of the organizations are either conceived as social movements or alliances. Among the alliances we can count Comunidad Ciudadana (Citizen Commune), which is led by former president Carlos Mesa and may present the most danger for Morales and the MAS' dominance yet. Other alliances are Bolivia Dice No, which emerged from the protests against Morales running again for the presidency. Carlos Ortiz, Senator and its leader, has not been able to gather enough strength to date. The last two alliance groups to mention in this list are Partido de Accion Nacional Boliviano (PAN-Bol, Bolivian National Action Party) and Frente para la Victoria (Victory Front), which virtually do not have any hope to play a role in the coming elections. The leaders in these two groups are also virtual unknowns at the national level.
I guess I do not need to say much about the MAS.
Polls and Voter Preferences
The graph above gives us the average support for the most relevant candidates in this electoral period, from July to October 2019. This is the average of all the polls published in the electoral agency. It is my calculation and should be taken as informative only.
Below, I have made another graph that shows all the polls yet published, once again, from July to September 2019. These polls can be downloaded from the electoral agency's website. Also, these are, as any poll, a moment picture at the time of interview, hence subject to change as the political process reaches its apex. One more thing about the polls, is that while the majority are to be considered at the national level, the Ipsos poll was only conducted in the capital cities, which might skew the result a bit. Ipsos has been doing this for a while now and their argument is that most of Bolivians live in the urban areas and therefore the poll is representative.
The first thing to notice is the fact that these polls do not say anything telling about a trend over time. Even though the polls are from July to September, there is no telling whether any candidate is increasing his/her support or not. To the contrary, I would venture to say, these polls are a bit confusing. They seem to run all over the place.
The one thing clear is the fact that Evo Morales has a comfortable lead over the second in the list, Carlos Mesa. A third distant candidate is Oscar Ortiz, who gets almost lost among the votes for null or the ones for people who do not know for whom they will be casting their vote for.
If we want to see trends over the last months, we have to look at the data by polling company. That is what the two graphs above are doing. The first graph shows the polling data from Mercado y Muestras. It shows a slight downward tendency for the two candidates with the most support. The second graph, shows the data from Ciesmori (it used to be called only Mori). In the same manner, the graph only shows a slight downward trend among the most important candidates, but it does show a clearer upwards trend among the people who responded with don't know or I am voting null or blank.
The contrary we seem to be able to observe from the next graph. This time, the graph is based on the data generated by Viaciencia, and shows an around 4 point upward trend for Morales and a slight downward trend for Mesa.
That is it! That is all we can rescue from these data.
Analysis
So what conclusions can we take from this information?
The quick answer is not much. The polls are not really telling anything, neither as a moment picture nor over a period of time. What has been clear for a long time, is clear today...
Namely, Morales is still leading the voter intention polls and is set to win the next elections, thereby extending his presidency beyond 2020.
This is what he, his team and his party have been working towards and it seems they are in a good path.
At the same time, it is also evident Morales and the MAS are losing support quite significantly, when we look at the polls at the departmental level where nevertheless they are still the first choice.
The Ipsos poll, for instance, shows a 2 % decline in the support for Morales from 2018 to 2019, while the support for Mesa increased 3 % in the same period. However, the most worrying part of this poll for the MAS should be the results for cities such as Sucre, Tarija and Potosi, which show an increased support for Mesa of 58, 34, 49 % respectively and a declined support for Morales of 14, 25, 17 % respectively in comparison to prior polls. In Sucre and Potosi, former MAS dominated departments, Mesa leads by 44 and 32 percentage points. That sounds wrong, when we think about the dominance of MAS, but sentiments and perceptions are changing slowly in parts of the country.
This might eventually become a factor for, let's say, the next elections. At some point in time in the future, the erosion of political support will become a factor. We only need to look at Germany's Angela Merkel, who after 13 years in office, was forced to take a vow and announce the end of her era.
One other factor to mention here is the short period for political campaign. The campaign, according to the electoral schedule starts in July and ends before elections day. The publication of political messages in the media is even shorter. Polls are allowed to be publised also between July (20th) and October 13th. With such rules, it seems almost impossible to draw trends of the support levels for the candidates. It is really a short period of time.
One last thing to mention is the divided opposition, which once again has not been able to come together to present a united front to Morales. Months before the campaign period started, the opposition talked, met and considered, without success. It seems there are too many egos or too little trust to form a large alliance capable of presenting competition to Morales.
Here is a look at the players taking part in this year's general elections. I will present here the candidates and the political organizations.
As a brief reminder, the Bolivian political party system is dominated today, in this plurinational era, not by political parties, as understood in the western sense, but by political organizations. This is a more general term including formal political parties as well as alliances, citizens groups, social movements and other groupings with the intention to take part in elections with candidates.
There is a historical background for this. Briefly explained, it has to do with a law passed in the 1990s allowing other types of political organizations to take part in elections. It also has to do with the political events leading up to the rising of Evo Morales and the MAS, when the population lost trust on what Bolivians know today as the traditional political parties. Since then, many politicians have had to reinvent themselves and in order to gather political strength, they have had to forge alliances amongst the various interest groups in Bolivian society.
Having said that, I am presenting in the following table a list of all the registered and officially listed candidates to the offices of president and vice-president, along with their respective political organizations.
 |
| Source: Miguel A. Buitrago, based on OEP data |
In the list of political organizations, the only traditional political party left is the MNR, and perhaps the UCS and the PDC, which have played a much less significant role in Bolivian politics as the MNR. That much is for sure. The rest of the organizations are either conceived as social movements or alliances. Among the alliances we can count Comunidad Ciudadana (Citizen Commune), which is led by former president Carlos Mesa and may present the most danger for Morales and the MAS' dominance yet. Other alliances are Bolivia Dice No, which emerged from the protests against Morales running again for the presidency. Carlos Ortiz, Senator and its leader, has not been able to gather enough strength to date. The last two alliance groups to mention in this list are Partido de Accion Nacional Boliviano (PAN-Bol, Bolivian National Action Party) and Frente para la Victoria (Victory Front), which virtually do not have any hope to play a role in the coming elections. The leaders in these two groups are also virtual unknowns at the national level.
I guess I do not need to say much about the MAS.
Polls and Voter Preferences
 |
| Source: Miguel A. Buitrago, based on OEP data. |
The graph above gives us the average support for the most relevant candidates in this electoral period, from July to October 2019. This is the average of all the polls published in the electoral agency. It is my calculation and should be taken as informative only.
Below, I have made another graph that shows all the polls yet published, once again, from July to September 2019. These polls can be downloaded from the electoral agency's website. Also, these are, as any poll, a moment picture at the time of interview, hence subject to change as the political process reaches its apex. One more thing about the polls, is that while the majority are to be considered at the national level, the Ipsos poll was only conducted in the capital cities, which might skew the result a bit. Ipsos has been doing this for a while now and their argument is that most of Bolivians live in the urban areas and therefore the poll is representative.
 |
| Source: Miguel A. Buitrago, based on OEP data. |
The first thing to notice is the fact that these polls do not say anything telling about a trend over time. Even though the polls are from July to September, there is no telling whether any candidate is increasing his/her support or not. To the contrary, I would venture to say, these polls are a bit confusing. They seem to run all over the place.
The one thing clear is the fact that Evo Morales has a comfortable lead over the second in the list, Carlos Mesa. A third distant candidate is Oscar Ortiz, who gets almost lost among the votes for null or the ones for people who do not know for whom they will be casting their vote for.
 |
| Source: Miguel A. Buitrago, based on OEP data. |
If we want to see trends over the last months, we have to look at the data by polling company. That is what the two graphs above are doing. The first graph shows the polling data from Mercado y Muestras. It shows a slight downward tendency for the two candidates with the most support. The second graph, shows the data from Ciesmori (it used to be called only Mori). In the same manner, the graph only shows a slight downward trend among the most important candidates, but it does show a clearer upwards trend among the people who responded with don't know or I am voting null or blank.
 |
| Source: Miguel A. Buitrago, based on OEP data. |
The contrary we seem to be able to observe from the next graph. This time, the graph is based on the data generated by Viaciencia, and shows an around 4 point upward trend for Morales and a slight downward trend for Mesa.
That is it! That is all we can rescue from these data.
Analysis
So what conclusions can we take from this information?
The quick answer is not much. The polls are not really telling anything, neither as a moment picture nor over a period of time. What has been clear for a long time, is clear today...
Namely, Morales is still leading the voter intention polls and is set to win the next elections, thereby extending his presidency beyond 2020.
This is what he, his team and his party have been working towards and it seems they are in a good path.
At the same time, it is also evident Morales and the MAS are losing support quite significantly, when we look at the polls at the departmental level where nevertheless they are still the first choice.
The Ipsos poll, for instance, shows a 2 % decline in the support for Morales from 2018 to 2019, while the support for Mesa increased 3 % in the same period. However, the most worrying part of this poll for the MAS should be the results for cities such as Sucre, Tarija and Potosi, which show an increased support for Mesa of 58, 34, 49 % respectively and a declined support for Morales of 14, 25, 17 % respectively in comparison to prior polls. In Sucre and Potosi, former MAS dominated departments, Mesa leads by 44 and 32 percentage points. That sounds wrong, when we think about the dominance of MAS, but sentiments and perceptions are changing slowly in parts of the country.
This might eventually become a factor for, let's say, the next elections. At some point in time in the future, the erosion of political support will become a factor. We only need to look at Germany's Angela Merkel, who after 13 years in office, was forced to take a vow and announce the end of her era.
One other factor to mention here is the short period for political campaign. The campaign, according to the electoral schedule starts in July and ends before elections day. The publication of political messages in the media is even shorter. Polls are allowed to be publised also between July (20th) and October 13th. With such rules, it seems almost impossible to draw trends of the support levels for the candidates. It is really a short period of time.
One last thing to mention is the divided opposition, which once again has not been able to come together to present a united front to Morales. Months before the campaign period started, the opposition talked, met and considered, without success. It seems there are too many egos or too little trust to form a large alliance capable of presenting competition to Morales.
