Elections 2019: What Happened? Chaos, Distrust, Impatience or Normality?
MABB ©
On this third day after Bolivians voted on October 20th who will be their next president for the period 2020 - 2025, the situation has somewhat calmed down but the uncertainty about the validity of the elections and, above all, about who won the elections or whether there will be a runoff is still at best blurry.
The last two days have been very agitated for everyone in the country. As I noted in prior posts, the process degenerated into a chaotic situation where people were not only expressing their distrust of the government and the electoral commission but they began to set the commission's departmental offices on fire, to destroy or vandalize the offices of MAS in several cities and to confront the police, to the point where some people resulted injured.
Observers of Bolivian politics are, with reason, confused, concerned and many are disappointed, at the images they are finding online.
What happened?
The explanation seems to be one of inept or misguided decision-making from the part of the electoral commission, the OEP, and of a deep distrust on the government.
In the first place, it is useful to look at the facts.
Alas, these facts are my own, as I saw them while following as close as I can the elections process.
The facts are the following:
Elections day started with a feel of normality and routine. As the clock hit 8 am, press teams began reporting on the opening of voting places (mostly schools) and the procedures with which the many voting tables opened.
There were reports of voting places being opened with delay and of some rural places not having received the voting material yet. Officials, however, issued repeated assurances that those minor problems were being addressed and that people were going to be able to vote on that day.
Throughout the day, the media, as well as private persons, continued to feed the public record with images, videos, and articles about the normal progress of the elections. People identifying themselves, officials showing the empty ballot, voters going into the voting booth, voters depositing their ballots in the urns, long lines, observers in their places, etc.
6 pm - As the evening approached and the election day came to a close, the media reported on the closing of many voting tables around the country. At the same time, there were already some reports of some tables having proceeded to count the votes and sent those results to the OEP.
The media was expecting some preliminary results by 8 pm.
7.40 pm - The electoral tribunal (electoral commission), the entity organizing the elections, published its last report of the rapid voting count system named TREP (Transmision de Resultados Electorales Preliminares or Transmission of Preliminary Electoral Results). A system that was supposed to continuously give preliminary or unofficial results within two hours of closing.
At the time, the preliminary results showed Evo Morales having gotten a bit more than 45% support and Carlos Mesa a bit more than 38% of the vote. That would make a difference of 7%. The results showed 84% of the voting tables counted.
8.00 - Sometime around this hour the rapid count results of the company providing such counts, Viaciencia, were published. These results had a similar purpose as the exit polls in the US. Parallel, two other institutions, namely Jubileo and UMSA, published their rapid count estimates on a website. These two unofficial results were giving a difference of between 4 and 5 percentage points.
8.10 - The OEP stopped disclosing preliminary results, by a decision of the plenary, with around 84% of the votes counted.
Between 8.10 and 11.00 pm people went out on the streets to demonstrate their distrust and, as they said, to control the counting process. The aim would be to safeguard their votes.
Demonstrations turned into vandalism. The departmental offices of the OEP in Potosi and Sucre were set on fire.
Many people began to confront OEP officials on the streets asking them what were they doing with the ballots.
There were reports of ballot boxes being abandoned on the street, being on private houses, officials opening what should have been sealed ballot boxes, etc.
11.11 pm Mesa releases a video on his Twitter account alleging irregularities by the OEP and questioning the suspension of the updates to the website TREP. He also mentioned the similar questions made by the observing mission of the OAS.
October 21 and 22 - these two days were spent largely by people continuing the demonstrations outside the many OEP offices around the main cities. Many civil society organizations, opposition and MAS allies, met and issued statements either supporting or discrediting the OEP and the results. Carlos Mesa disqualified the results and said he was not going to accept them. There were more disturbances and confrontation between demonstrators and police.
On the 22nd many civil society organizations in several large cities, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, La Paz and also Sucre and Tarija, decided to start a general strike to paralyze the country.
Between late night and early morning of the 23rd, the OEP offices in Santa Cruz and Beni were set on fire.
Not only the OAS and the EU, but the governments of Great Brittain and the US expressed their concern. The American diplomat in charge of the Western Hemisphere, Michael Kozak, reminded the public (and the government) the US government was following the developments in Bolivia very closely.
Where are we now?
Bolivians are in a situation where there are no trustworthy election results and instead there is social conflict.
The OEP, despite all the doubts about the quality of the job it is doing and the social convulsion its decisions have triggered, it keeps on counting the votes. It obviously denies all fraud allegations.
On the one side, it is understandable the institution will want to keep with the counting. It is after all its job and obligation. The country will need some type of final results, whether they are trusted or not. That should be difficult however because the count has been stopped in the Potosi and Chuquisaca departments due to the fires and the damage the local OEP offices have had to endure.
Meanwhile, many of its officials are terrified by now and do not want to show themselves in public. Only the head of the Pando office expressed his fear in a television interview. He said he was afraid for him and his family.
On the other side, it is not understandable the OEP's decision to stop the update of the very system designed to give the results high credibility and confidence, because of the level of transparency it was built into it. That might have been the most questionable decision the commission, headed by Maria Choque, had made that day.
Currently, the TREP website seems to be updated. It shows the count as of today (October 23) at 11.16 am. The difference between first and second places is 9.33%, with 95.63% of the votes counted. Here is an image.
As for the government, adding fuel to the fire (surely unintended, for who would want that), proclaimed its victory very early in the evening of that day. While yesterday Morales was asking people to wait until the publication of the final official count, today, he thanked voters for a fourth consecutive victory. Something that might be true, but far from helpful at this time. Adding even more fuel, he made Carlos Mesa responsible for the disturbances and he asserted that the intention of "some" was to perpetrate a coup against his government. He also called his supporters to "defend" the MAS vote.
The opposition also added fuel to the fire. Carlos Mesa and his political organization CC are placing all the blame on the OEP, as it is, they claim, under the total control of MAS. Also, Mesa has said he will not accept the results and asked his supporters to come out and "defend" democracy and ask for a runoff.
Civil society is currently carrying out a general strike, paralyzing thus most, if not all, the major cities. This strike is being imposed on the citizenry even though the government and its agencies have said there will be normalcy of business and work. Demonstrations, marches, and roadblocks are being set up in the cities.
The interesting thing is that people such as market vendors, teachers, students, doctors, and nurses, etc., are going out in support of the general strike.
The OAS made public its preliminary assessment of the elections. They released a preliminary report because of the urgency of the situation. In its assessment, the OAS expressed its doubts about the veracity and transparency of the counting process and the work of the OEP. It also expressed the acceptance of carrying out an audit to the process, positively answering a request from the Bolivian government.
The answer to the question is, we do not know.
At the moment, there are not rapid counts produced by the OEP. The results produced are completely discredited.
There are however unofficial results from viaciencia and tuvotocuenta.org.bo.
The official count is, for all we know, stopped.
No results, not solution to the problem.
No solution means, it seems, for now, more social unrest. Hopefully, no violence.
On this third day after Bolivians voted on October 20th who will be their next president for the period 2020 - 2025, the situation has somewhat calmed down but the uncertainty about the validity of the elections and, above all, about who won the elections or whether there will be a runoff is still at best blurry.
The last two days have been very agitated for everyone in the country. As I noted in prior posts, the process degenerated into a chaotic situation where people were not only expressing their distrust of the government and the electoral commission but they began to set the commission's departmental offices on fire, to destroy or vandalize the offices of MAS in several cities and to confront the police, to the point where some people resulted injured.
Observers of Bolivian politics are, with reason, confused, concerned and many are disappointed, at the images they are finding online.
What happened?
The explanation seems to be one of inept or misguided decision-making from the part of the electoral commission, the OEP, and of a deep distrust on the government.
In the first place, it is useful to look at the facts.
Alas, these facts are my own, as I saw them while following as close as I can the elections process.
The facts are the following:
Elections day started with a feel of normality and routine. As the clock hit 8 am, press teams began reporting on the opening of voting places (mostly schools) and the procedures with which the many voting tables opened.
There were reports of voting places being opened with delay and of some rural places not having received the voting material yet. Officials, however, issued repeated assurances that those minor problems were being addressed and that people were going to be able to vote on that day.
Throughout the day, the media, as well as private persons, continued to feed the public record with images, videos, and articles about the normal progress of the elections. People identifying themselves, officials showing the empty ballot, voters going into the voting booth, voters depositing their ballots in the urns, long lines, observers in their places, etc.
6 pm - As the evening approached and the election day came to a close, the media reported on the closing of many voting tables around the country. At the same time, there were already some reports of some tables having proceeded to count the votes and sent those results to the OEP.
The media was expecting some preliminary results by 8 pm.
7.40 pm - The electoral tribunal (electoral commission), the entity organizing the elections, published its last report of the rapid voting count system named TREP (Transmision de Resultados Electorales Preliminares or Transmission of Preliminary Electoral Results). A system that was supposed to continuously give preliminary or unofficial results within two hours of closing.
At the time, the preliminary results showed Evo Morales having gotten a bit more than 45% support and Carlos Mesa a bit more than 38% of the vote. That would make a difference of 7%. The results showed 84% of the voting tables counted.
8.00 - Sometime around this hour the rapid count results of the company providing such counts, Viaciencia, were published. These results had a similar purpose as the exit polls in the US. Parallel, two other institutions, namely Jubileo and UMSA, published their rapid count estimates on a website. These two unofficial results were giving a difference of between 4 and 5 percentage points.
8.10 - The OEP stopped disclosing preliminary results, by a decision of the plenary, with around 84% of the votes counted.
Between 8.10 and 11.00 pm people went out on the streets to demonstrate their distrust and, as they said, to control the counting process. The aim would be to safeguard their votes.
Demonstrations turned into vandalism. The departmental offices of the OEP in Potosi and Sucre were set on fire.
Many people began to confront OEP officials on the streets asking them what were they doing with the ballots.
There were reports of ballot boxes being abandoned on the street, being on private houses, officials opening what should have been sealed ballot boxes, etc.
11.11 pm Mesa releases a video on his Twitter account alleging irregularities by the OEP and questioning the suspension of the updates to the website TREP. He also mentioned the similar questions made by the observing mission of the OAS.
October 21 and 22 - these two days were spent largely by people continuing the demonstrations outside the many OEP offices around the main cities. Many civil society organizations, opposition and MAS allies, met and issued statements either supporting or discrediting the OEP and the results. Carlos Mesa disqualified the results and said he was not going to accept them. There were more disturbances and confrontation between demonstrators and police.
On the 22nd many civil society organizations in several large cities, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, La Paz and also Sucre and Tarija, decided to start a general strike to paralyze the country.
Between late night and early morning of the 23rd, the OEP offices in Santa Cruz and Beni were set on fire.
Not only the OAS and the EU, but the governments of Great Brittain and the US expressed their concern. The American diplomat in charge of the Western Hemisphere, Michael Kozak, reminded the public (and the government) the US government was following the developments in Bolivia very closely.
Where are we now?
Bolivians are in a situation where there are no trustworthy election results and instead there is social conflict.
The OEP, despite all the doubts about the quality of the job it is doing and the social convulsion its decisions have triggered, it keeps on counting the votes. It obviously denies all fraud allegations.
On the one side, it is understandable the institution will want to keep with the counting. It is after all its job and obligation. The country will need some type of final results, whether they are trusted or not. That should be difficult however because the count has been stopped in the Potosi and Chuquisaca departments due to the fires and the damage the local OEP offices have had to endure.
Meanwhile, many of its officials are terrified by now and do not want to show themselves in public. Only the head of the Pando office expressed his fear in a television interview. He said he was afraid for him and his family.
On the other side, it is not understandable the OEP's decision to stop the update of the very system designed to give the results high credibility and confidence, because of the level of transparency it was built into it. That might have been the most questionable decision the commission, headed by Maria Choque, had made that day.
Currently, the TREP website seems to be updated. It shows the count as of today (October 23) at 11.16 am. The difference between first and second places is 9.33%, with 95.63% of the votes counted. Here is an image.
 |
| Source: OEP |
As for the government, adding fuel to the fire (surely unintended, for who would want that), proclaimed its victory very early in the evening of that day. While yesterday Morales was asking people to wait until the publication of the final official count, today, he thanked voters for a fourth consecutive victory. Something that might be true, but far from helpful at this time. Adding even more fuel, he made Carlos Mesa responsible for the disturbances and he asserted that the intention of "some" was to perpetrate a coup against his government. He also called his supporters to "defend" the MAS vote.
The opposition also added fuel to the fire. Carlos Mesa and his political organization CC are placing all the blame on the OEP, as it is, they claim, under the total control of MAS. Also, Mesa has said he will not accept the results and asked his supporters to come out and "defend" democracy and ask for a runoff.
Civil society is currently carrying out a general strike, paralyzing thus most, if not all, the major cities. This strike is being imposed on the citizenry even though the government and its agencies have said there will be normalcy of business and work. Demonstrations, marches, and roadblocks are being set up in the cities.
The interesting thing is that people such as market vendors, teachers, students, doctors, and nurses, etc., are going out in support of the general strike.
The OAS made public its preliminary assessment of the elections. They released a preliminary report because of the urgency of the situation. In its assessment, the OAS expressed its doubts about the veracity and transparency of the counting process and the work of the OEP. It also expressed the acceptance of carrying out an audit to the process, positively answering a request from the Bolivian government.
The answer to the question is, we do not know.
At the moment, there are not rapid counts produced by the OEP. The results produced are completely discredited.
There are however unofficial results from viaciencia and tuvotocuenta.org.bo.
The official count is, for all we know, stopped.
No results, not solution to the problem.
No solution means, it seems, for now, more social unrest. Hopefully, no violence.
