#Bolivianelections2020: Composition of Congress
Bolivia Today ©
MAS' landslide win of the October 18 general elections could not have been more clear. Luis Arce managed to reach 55 percent of voter support, a new first that even Morales has not been able to reach, though he came pretty close. Now that that question is clear, all the eyes have turned towards the composition of Congress. Unlike the comfortable position his predecessor Morales was in, controlling 2/3 of the seats in both chambers (i.e. super-majority), Arce has to manage this time around "only" with a majority.That will have to do.
The following graphs have been created based on TSE data. Please take a look at the end of this post for an image of the TSE's official results.
The Senate
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| Own elaboration with TSE data |
Chamber of Deputies
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| Own elaboration with TSE data |
The Chamber of Deputies is made up of 130 deputies, divided into 63 plurinacionales (candidates from a list), 60 uninacionales (direct mandates) and 7 special ethnic minority seats. MAS was able to amass a commanding 75 from 130 seats, including all the special minority seats. As you can see, here too MAS has managed to get 9 more seats than needed to assure a simple majority.
CC and Creemos seem a bit disadvantaged in the lower chamber with 39 and 16 seats respectively.
The Asamblea Plurinacional (Plurinational Assembly)
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| Own elaboration with TSE data |
Maybe here is necessary to remember that in most presidential systems, most of the work can be achieved with a simple majority (50 percent +1). The 2/3 majority or super-majority is necessary to make very important decisions such as constitutional amendments.
Seat Allocation
The seats in the new congress are allocated according to the following table.
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| Source: TSE |
Since the Bolivian electoral system is based on the MMP system, there are two types of seats in congress. One type is what Bolivians call plurinominal and refers to the departmental list of candidates each party submits for the election. The other seat type is called uninominal which refers to a district or constituency or also known as direct mandate. The seven, so called special districts are reserved for indigenous minorities, and are treated just like uninominal (direct mandates).
Each category has a set number of seats allocated based on geographical districts based population, ethnicity and self identification and according to economic development, population (with less populated departments being compensated), and equality and fairness.
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| Own elaboration with TSE data |
Each department has a predetermined number of seats, which will have to be filled in proportion to the percentages each political party got from the results. Below you will find the TSE's table detailing the distribution of the seats.
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| Screenshot from TSE report |
