#Elections 2021: Final and Official Results
Bolivia Today ©
The Bolivian electoral agency, Organo Electoral Plurinacional (OEP), finally published the official results from last March/May's state and local elections. They took so long because in several states there were second-round elections for governors. Bolivia calls these elections sub-national elections.
These elections are important because they redistribute political power among the nine departments and the more than 330 municipalities where not only governors and mayors are elected but also assemblies and councils. Within these state and local governments many things are decided, above all infrastructure.
In this post I summarized the official results in the form of a set of two images, one for each of the nine departments and another one for each one of the department capitals. The capital cities are not only the center of power in each department but also the cities with the most inhabitants. One image shows the newly elected governor as well as the distribution of power or seats within the department assembly. The second image shows the newly elected mayor as well as the distribution of power or seats within the municipal council. Keep in mind these authorities have been elected to serve from 2021 to 2026.
As Bolivia has a system of government strongly influenced by federalism, it is important to pay attention to the distribution of power withing the different levels of government. Below you will find a table showing in which state and local governments parties have control of both the executive and the legislative.
The table shows that MAS will be able to govern comfortably in Cochabamba, Potosi and Oruro, as it controls the executive and the legislative.
Overall, however, the results show that people trusted more non-MAS candidates for governorship, where 6 out of 9 governors are non-MAS candidates.
To this we have to add that the assemblies have a strong MAS presence. Some of the undecided assemblies are basically divided between the opposition and the MAS where both sides are close to the simple majority and with the rest of the votes dispersed among smaller parties. This situation places a lot of leverage on these smaller parties. In many cases, these smaller factions are composed by the indigenous seats, and these often vote alongside MAS.
Also, it is important to remember that some of the said non-MAS candidates are indeed former MAS members.
At the local level, it seems power is the most dispersed. There are basically only three capital cities where the local power is controlled by one political force. These cities are: La Paz, Cochabamba and Tarija.
In all these three cities, MAS plays a moderate role because of the number of seats MAS candidates have attained within the councils. At the same time, many of these local councils are classified as undecided because the political forces do have presence but not one of them can claim the majority within the body.
One last remark, there is a plethora of alliances or movements with political representation in the councils. This is mainly due to the political system which allows for groups, alliances and other types of political organizations to take part in the elections. Political parties do not have the monopoly of representation since the 1990s.
