#Elections: Preliminary Results for the Sub-national Elections 2021 in #Bolivia
Bolivia Today ©
The quick facts are:
a) the MAS could not achieve as much support this time around compared to last year's general elections.
b) the MAS government's influence is definitely weaker, compared to the latter years when Morales was in power.
c) no political party active in the last elections (sub-national or national levels of government) could solidify its presence as a national political force.
d) instead, the political field is filled with (what I would call) ad hoc alliances with strong characteristics of social movement, personalized leaderships, and/or interest groups.
e) the geographical divide between the east and west is back.
f) the sub-national political landscape has become a breeding ground for new leadership, often despite the national leadership's efforts to keep control.
The results
The results are final in the sense that they reflect 99 to 100 percent of the ballots cast and counted by the respective departmental electoral tribunal. These are not the final official results, which (as we just learned from the US elections) still need to be certified by Congress. The certification can take some time, but they will not (should not) differ from the results presented at the TSE's website.
I present below first the results for the governor election and then for the mayor of the departmental capital city. In La Paz's case, there are two cities I must take into account, La Paz and El Alto. As you know, would be very problematic to ignore.
Governor races
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| Source: TSE results website |
Short analysis
At the gubernatorial level, things did not go as well as expected for MAS, especially considering the overwhelming support this party obtained in last year's presidential elections and in the previous sub-national elections. In 2015, MAS won six of the nine governorships.
This is clearly true in Beni and Santa Cruz, where MAS lost by large margins. However, the results worrying MAS leadership the most are the ones in La Paz, Pando, Tarija and Chuquisaca, where MAS went from having clear advantage to having now to dispute the governorship in a second round of elections because the MAS candidates did not get as much support as they would have needed.
In fact, TSE president, Salvador Romero, confirmed this Monday there will be a second elections round on Sunday, April 11, in the elections for governors of La Paz, Pando, Tarija and Chuquisaca. In La Paz the second round will be disputed between Franklin Flores from MAS and Santos Quispe from Jallalla. In Chuquisaca, Damián Condori (CST) and Juan Carlos León (MAS) will compete for the governorship. In the case of Tarija, the election will be between Óscar Montes (Unidos) and Álvaro Ruiz (MAS). In Pando the race will be between Miguel Becerra (MAS) and Regis Richter (MTS).
This leaves the MAS vulnerable at the national level because they may lose up to four governorships, which would mean six out of nine would be in control of the opposition. How likely it is that MAS will lose? This is a question that will need to be answered with the final results, after the second round of elections.
In La Paz, there is the chance that the MAS candidate will get enough support because he is leading by a difference of some 15 percentage points and La Paz has been a stronghold of MAS. This is considered in Bolivian politics as a comfortable lead. At the same time, the challenger Quispe, represents a group of voters that were part of MAS or supported MAS before but they have grown increasingly frustrated with the party's leadership, especially with Evo Morales. These voters have been criticizing Morales' insistence on staying in power and the way he and his close aids try to determine who rises in the ranks and, ultimately, who runs for office. So, if the challenger manages to exploit this frustration and transfer it to the MAS candidate, he might have a chance.
In Chuquisaca, the situation is similar to La Paz, only the difference is some six percentage points. That would automatically mean, the candidate challenging MAS would have less distance to cover. It will be interesting to see, how the rest of the voters decide this second time around. They make up, according to the results, some 15 percentage points, and with that more than enough to defeat MAS. Observing these results, I almost want to predict a MAS defeat, because the other organizations (i.e. CA, BSTH and Unidos) have a lot of support in the urban areas, that is Sucre. In Chuquisaca has been the case where there is a pointed difference (not just ethnic but historical as well) between the urban and rural areas, and this actually means between the city of Sucre, where a large percentage of the population lives, and the rural areas, which has been losing population and has been traditionally sparsely populated.
In Pando and Tarija the situation is much more difficult for MAS, or if you want to see it from the opposite side, it is much more comfortable for the candidates challenging MAS. The difference in Pando of 2 percentage points and in Tarija, where the result is a virtual tie, with less than one percentage point (0.12%) is foretelling bad news for MAS. First, both departments have been part of the opposition since MAS rose to power. However, MAS has made slow but steady progress in gaining support in these two departments.
In Tarija, it will be decisive how the voters supporting Comunidad de Todos will vote this time around. This group has attained some 18 percentage points in the first round. Once again, the urban/rural dived will be decisive, with the caveat that regional politics withing the Tarija department is also very much relevant. The ethnic component of politics plays a more important role in the urban areas, I would say.
In Pando, the Third System Movement has been gaining support at a steady pace. In this part of Bolivia, national parties and other organizations have tended to play a lesser role, especially in the last decades. While once a strong hold of the MNR, the politics in the department has starkly changed. Now, the tendencies show a much regional focus whereby the department's interests play a significant role. Additionally, I dare to point out the negative effect the imprisonment of Janine Anez in the last days will have in the second round of elections. I do not think voters in Eastern Bolivia will find this a particularly encouraging development to support the MAS. I think it will have the opposite effect.
Mayor races for department capital cities (major cities)
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| Source: TSE results website |
Short analysis
Judging from the situation at the municipal level (i.e. the capital cities), it seems MAS has again its work cut out. From the ten cities, only Sucre and Oruro elected a MAS candidate. This result is similar to that in 2015, when only two cities, Potosi and Sucre, elected a MAS candidate. At the same time, there is a large number of alliances and leadership projecting themselves as a real alternative to MAS. Interesting to see, is the number of new leaderships emerging from the MAS' ranks but now joining the opposition.
But first, a word for clarification. I look only at the nine departmental capitals plus El Alto, because it is the most practical and significant thing to do (for me, of course). For one, I do not have time to look at the 330 plus municipalities in the country. Plus, I also want to take a look at the assembly compositions, and that also takes time. Another reason is, because much of the politically relevant developments happen in these 10 cities. Whatever happens in the other middle to small municipalities around the country, is more or less of local relevance, and rarely transgresses the municipality's boundaries. Finally, the majority of Bolivians live in the urban areas, that is, in the 10 major cities in the country.
El Alto, Santa Cruz and Potosi dealt MAS the most crushing defeat.
In El Alto, a once stronghold of MAS support in the last presidential elections, the party barely managed to reach 19 percent of support. However, this is nothing new if we consider that in 2015 the city elected Soledad Chapeton (SOL.BO), another former MAS figure who left the party to join the opposition and won the election. This time around, Eva Copa, former Senate President for MAS, joined the opposition in an alliance called Jallalla to win the elections by the largest margin yet. Her level of support is overwhelming in the city. Furthermore, this is not the first time a leader within MAS decides to leave the party. In fact, in El Alto, Copa is the second woman-leader who decides to leave MAS. By now, it is tempting to question the way the party is dealing with its young female leaders. The relevant question is: why are these female leaders deciding to leave the party?
The Potosi case is a bit complex. It seems the electorate, not being satisfied with the last MAS mayor, has diversified. In this elections, there were several contending alliances effectively splitting the vote. However, The alliances Civic Popular Movement (Movimiento Civico Popular, MCP) and Social Alliance (Alianza Social, AS) have managed to get a large percentage of support, 37 and 30 percent respectively. The MAS, landing in third place got 11 percent, and other alliances such as Democratas, CA, MTS, Puka Sanku, CGJAP, etc., got the rest of the votes. In the end, the MCP candidate Johnny Llally, seems to have convinced the most voters, because people knew him from his leadership role in the influential Civic Committee Potosino (Comite Civico Potosinista, Comcipo).
The least surprising was Santa Cruz, where MAS has played a somewhat marginal role in politics. The city was basically divided between UCS and CA, 35 and 34 percentage points respectively. The MAS only managed to get some 16 percent, while other alliances such as Democratas and SPT got the rest. The UCS candidate, Max Johnny Fernandez, has been a name in politics in the city and is therefore well known. He is the son of Max Fernandez, who in the 1980s founded UCS and was part of a central government coalition. The city's government has been in a sort of limbo since April 2020 when the last elected mayor, Percy Fernandez (no relationship with Johnny), excused himself from office due to health issues. Since then, interim Mayor Angelica Sosa, the city's council president took office representing the elected mayor. The city is the largest and wealthiest cities in Bolivia and has a large influence in national politics. It is, and has been in the past, the center of MAS opposition.
On its part, La Paz showed a continued difficult relationship with MAS. While in national elections it has tended to support the party, at the La Paz city level (and departmental level), it has chosen an opposition candidate. In 2015, it voted for SOL.BO and current mayor Luis Revilla. In these elections it did it again, as the city elected Ivan Arias from For the Common Good We Are Country (Por el Bien Comun Somos Pueblo, PBCSP). These results, for me, only highlight the differences there are between urban and rural areas in Bolivian politics. The cities have tended to support alternative candidates to MAS. Yet, still, the MAS is the undeniable second political force with some 38 percent of the vote. Not quite irrelevant, as some might be tempted to conclude.
One anomaly for me would be the results in Cochabamba. This city elected a political relic, someone who has gone through political reincarnation coming back from the times Bolivians like to call the traditional parties era, when referring to the time before the arrival of MAS. Manfred Reyes Villa, from Join (Sumate) was a leading figure in the 90s and has been Cochabamba Mayor five times and the department's first elected Governor. It seems he has come back with a vengeance as 55 percent of the people voted for him. Of course, this is not surprising when we consider that in 2015 the city also voted for a non MAS candidate. Once again, rural/urban dynamics here? I think so.
Tarija and Cobija (Pando's capital city) have both opted for a non-MAS candidate, but the governing party still has enough political support. In Tarija, Johnny Torrez (Unidos por Tarija) was elected with some 53 percent, while the MAS candidate still managed to get some 25 percent of the vote. Other political organizations making it to the council were Comunidad de Todos and MTS, each with some 9 and 8 percent of the vote respectively. In Cobija, voters elected Ana Lucia Reis (MTS) with 44 percent support, while the MAS candidate got around 31 percent. Reis is a known name in the city. She has been mayor and held congressional seats for at least two other political parties, including the MAS. This time she joins the opposition, as many other candidates have done in this election. However, the support for the governing party is substantial and Reis will have to make compromises to govern. The other two alliances to take into account are Democratic Integration Community, CID (Comunidad de Integracion Democratica) and Autonomist Democratic Movement, MDA (Movimiento Democratico Autonomista) with 16 and 6 percent respectively.
The situation in Trinidad (capital city of Beni) seems to be a bit more balanced, due to the number of political forces involved. As you know, this may be good or it may be bad in politics. The mayor elected Cristhian M. Camara (MTS) with around 28 percent support will have to balance his influence against that of Todos with some 23 percent, MAS with 19 percent and Ahora with some 16 percent support. Camara has a military background and has obtained license to take part in these elections.
Finally, Sucre and Oruro were the two cities electing MAS mayors in these elections. From these two cities, only Sucre elected a MAS candidate again, Enrique Leano. Meahwhile, Oruro elected Adhemar Wilcarani, having in 2015 elected someone from the MCSFA alliance. Oruro had no less than 13 alliances taking part, where MAS obtained 29 percent of the vote, while A Sun for Oruro (Un Sol para Oruro, USPO) attained some 28 percent of the vote and the Christian Democrats (PDC) some 11 percent. The rest of the alliances got between 1 and 4 percent of the votes. That is not a commanding lead in Bolivia, but is enough to be elected. Sucre had 10 alliances taking part, and MAS managed to get 33 percent support. However, another alliance, Republic 2025 (Republica-2025), also got 33 percent. This race was determined by 0.2 percentage points in favor of MAS. It could not have been closer.
Departmental assemblies
and
Municipal councils
will be updated later! Stay tuned.
Sources:
https://bolivia-today.blogspot.com/2015/06/subnational-elections-2015-results-and.html
