#Bolivianelections2020: The (Preliminary) Results

Bolivia Today © 

Source: tuvotocuenta.org.bo

Election day was largely peaceful, with some isolated incidents such as people (Bolivians) being transported over the border from Argentina into Bolivia to vote for a certain candidate, some ballots being stolen but then found so that voting could go on as planned, many people being arrested for breaking the state of good governance (auto de buen gobierno) mainly for driving without permission or drinking, and many people complaining them having been excluded from the voter list and not being able to vote. However, all in all, and so far, Bolivia can say election day has been relatively peaceful and, in that sense, successful. That is how Salvador Romero, President of TSE, described the process in his press conference at 21 hours, at the end of the day.

Source: Screenshot, Boliviatv

Another, thing to observe is that so far it is clear the pandemic has taken second place to the election. While most of the so called "biosecurity measures" (in Spanish medidas de bioseguridad) have been by and large strictly observed, i.e. wearing face masks and use of sanitary gel, physical distancing has been largely ignored. This is so, even in official places such as the departmental tribunals where the vote count is taking place. People (officials) there are simply not observing the distancing measures.

As far as the results go, it looks like the MAS is back in government with Luis Arce probably being the next Bolivian President. That is, at least, what the forecasts are saying at this time. 

The images at the top of this post are taken from the website tuvotocuenta.org.bo. This is a cooperation effort among a number of organizations, foundations, media, some ngos, and some international institutions, aiming at forecasting the results via the method "rapid count" (in Spanish conteo rapido). In fact, this is considered the most accurate method in Bolivia right now because it counts the already officially counted votes in some 4 thousand voting places across the country. This is taken to be a representative number with several categories accounting for urban-rural, north-south, small-large, etc. differences. 

Source: El Deber screenshot

Of course, there are also some other companies trying to forecast the results through exit polling, such as Ciesmori. However, this company issued a statement as the night came to an end saying they would not publish their results because people did not want to tell them for whom they voted. The president of the company said the most common answer was, "the vote is secret". However, they managed to achieve a statistical relevance at the 95 per centage of confidence. So they went ahead and published their results in Unitel and Bolivision.

In a preliminary conclusion, if we take the tuvotocuenta results as accurate, Arce has won direct election because it has achieved more than 50 per cent of the vote and on top of that he leads the second place with more than ten points of difference. This would mean there will not be a second round.

One thing to highlight is that these results, as they are, leave many people in Bolivia astounded, perplexed, dumbfounded, stupefied, as you might like to describe it. One quick revision of the commentaries analysts and experts reveals not only what I just described but many are closing their eyes trying to argue exit polls "can also be wrong". In the end, yes they are also prone to error, but that much error? 

I repeat what I said before. It seems the undecided and nobody vote has been decisive in this elections as well as the participation of Camacho in Santa Cruz.

Ultimately, the only true results, i.e. official results can be looked at the TSE website where the institution is also making available the official results as they are counted.