#BolivianElections2020: The First Debate
Bolivia Today ©
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| Source: Image taken from BoliviaTV Youtube channel |
His name is Feliciano Mamani, he is presidential candidate for Nactional Action Plan Bolivia (Plan de Accion Nacional Bolivia, PAN-Bol) and he was singing a short message in his native language Quechua to Luis Arce, MAS candidate because he was absent from the debate. He later explained, he asked Arce why was he not there, surely because his boss, former President Morales, said no. He used a short part of his last statement to sing that message for Arce. That was for me, the part that gave the Bolivian political touch to what otherwise would be a very North American inspired event.
Even though you might hear from one televised debate, there were actually two events. A first one on the 3rd and a second on the 4th of October. The first 'debate', which was more like a symposium, took place in Santa Cruz and was widely seen as an event organized by the MAS, because of the ties one sponsoring organization had with the party. The second debate, taking place in La Paz, was organized by several organizations with no apparent ties with the MAS and sponsored by what seems a large number of other organizations, international and national.
The candidates
Currently, there are seven candidates left, after acting care-taker president Anez dropped out of the race.
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| Source: debatebolivia2020.com |
From top left to right, the candidates are:
Luis Arce (former Finance Minister under Morales), Movement Towards Socialism - Political Instrument for the People's Sovereignty (Movimiento al Socialismo - Instrumento Politico por la Soberania de los Pueblos, MAS-IPSP).
Maria de la Cruz Baya (Baya is the only last name), Nationalist Democratic Action (Accion Democratica Nacionalista, ADN).
Fernando Camacho (civic leader), We Believe (Creemos) - an alliance of several groups, most important among them: Civic Solidarity Unit (Unidad CÃvica Solidaridad, UCS), Christian Democratic Party (Partido Demócrata Cristiano, PDC) and Citizens Group Democratic Road towards Change (Agrupación Ciudadana Camino Democrático para el Cambio).
Chi Hyun Chung (South Corean-Bolivian), Victory Front (Frente para la Victoria, FPV).
Feliciano Mamani, Nactional Action Plan Bolivia (Plan de Accion Nacional Bolivia, PAN-Bol).
Carlos Mesa (former VP and President), Citizen Community (Comunidad Ciudadana, CC).
Jorge Quiroga (former VP and President), Free 21 (Libre 21).
The first 'debate' (Symposium)
This debate was organized by Municipal Associations Federation Bolivia (Federacion de Asociaciones Municipales de Bolivia, FAM-Bol) and the Bolivian University Confederation (Confederacion Universitaria Boliviana, CUB). It took place on Saturday, October 3 at the Radisson hotel and was televised nationally by ATB network.
This was the only event so far where all seven candidates were present.
The questions were already formulated by the organizers and the moderator only read them to the candidates. The candidates could only answer the questions directly and they were penalized if they engaged the other candidates. They actually had to sign a document promising to follow the rules.
In the end, this debate was largely criticized because it was not really a debate, it turned out to be more like a symposium where each candidate presented their economic proposals, with no opportunity to criticize or establish any difference between themselves and the other candidates.
A day later, it became known that the CUB leadership was tied to the Morales government.
Nevertheless, the debate focused on the economy.
The event started presenting a video from each candidate presenting their ideas. The funny thing was that the Mesa (CC) video aired without audio. Later the organizers blamed the CC campaign for not sending a video with audio.
One question touched the issue of municipal development. The candidates talked about deepening decentralization, deepening the autonomic process, other candidates talked about federalism, arguing that more decisions had to be made by local authorities. Arce (MAS) talked about continuity, i.e. the centrality of the national government as a motor for development.
Camacho (Creemos) talked was the only candidate to mention pursuing free trade agreements and thus leaving ideological fights aside.
The issues of too much debt and deficits were largely blamed on the MAS government, with the MAS candidate having to defend that.
All in all, Quiroga (Libre 21), Mesa (CC) and Arce (MAS) seemed to have the most concrete and comprehensive plans to deal with some of the problems highlighted in the questions. The other candidates were either poorly prepared or were not able to relay their message very well.
A simple search will take you to a number of links that will show you the entire debate.
The second debate
The second debate took place on October 4, 2020, and was mainly organized by the National Press Association (Asociación Nacional de Periodistas de Bolivia), the Private Enterprises Confederation (Confederación de Empresarios Privados de Bolivia, CEPB), the Jubileo Foundation (Fundación Jubileo), and the San Andres University (Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, UMSA from La Paz) as well as a large group of radio, TV, press and online portals network. The event was also sponsored by the EU, IDEA, the German Government, Conrad Adenauer Foundation, and the Swiss and Canadian governments, to cite a few. It was held at the Bolivian Army Officers (Circulo de Oficiales del Ejercito, COE). Below you see a picture of Tuto Quiroga's arrival, and in the background you can distinguish the sponsors if you zoom into the picture.
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| Source: debatebolivia2020.com |
The debate was structured into question time (2 min.), commentary about participant claims (30 sec.) and rebuttal (30 sec.). The moderators actually ended up highlighting some participant claims themselves, because no candidate wanted to engage en debate.
The event was divided into six thematic parts, democracy and justice, economy, health, security-crime-violence-drug trafficking, environment and promise to respect the results.
Five of the seven presidential candidates participated, including the second place in the polls, Carlos Mesa (CC). The first and third place candidates, Luis Arce (MAS) and Luis F. Camacho (Creemos), respectively, did not show up.
A simple search will take you to a number of links that will show you the entire debate.
Analysis
As already mentioned above, the first debate was largely seen as an example of how NOT to organize a debate. The organizers formulated a set of questions for each candidate. Many observers said the questions Luis Arce got were tailored to enhance his campaign, while other candidates, especially Carlos Mesa, got much more critical questions. Also, the participation of seasoned journalists was criticized. The young woman moderating the event could not formulate her own questions. In fact, the most criticized "mistake" was to play the video sent by the Mesa campaign to showcase its message without audio. This had been part of the event, to show a campaign video for each party.
The result was an overly polite showcase of messages from each campaign. Though this format permitted to concentrate the discussion on an issue of major importance in Bolivia right now, it also fell far short of the expectations of most viewers.
Also mentioned above, I liked the presentations from Quiroga, above all, but also from Mesa and Arce. They were the most coherent, comprehensive and concrete.
Quiroga managed to heavily criticize the MAS in his intervention again and again. His strategy was clearly to make as much damage to MAS as possible.
Arce, concentrated on his message of continuity and highlighting his record. Personally, I would have suggested him to place more emphasis on his experience, but he did not do that. He was too modest for me.
Mesa, the most media savvy in that group, because he is a journalist and former TV moderator, made a point to connect with the viewer. He repeatedly looked at the camera and pointed with this hand at the viewer and said he or she was the most important thing in his mind. That, I think, might have gained him a couple of points in what it is going to be a close elections, for Bolivian conditions.
Regarding the second debate, the most important thing coming out of it was the absence of Luis Arce, and in second place, Fernando Camacho's absence. The message being repeated again and again around the large number of media making live coverage of the debate and making subsequent analysis and reporting about it in retrospect, was that Arce had no respect for the Bolivian voter or that he was doing what Morales wanted him to do. That might be a damaging message, even in a situation where many voters know already for whom they will vote. Let us not forget there is a large percentage of undecided voters out there still.
What is more, this number is only prone to increase by the number of voters supporting candidates that have or will drop off the race until election day. Janine Anez has already given up, the expectation is that Fernando Camacho will quit also. Many people are very nervous Arce is leading with 8 to 10 points.
Sources:
https://www.lostiempos.com/actualidad/pais/20200124/camacho-pumari-presentan-alianza-creemos-encarar-elecciones
https://debatebolivia2020.com/
https://boliviaverifica.bo/
