Setback for the MAS in Bolivia: loses the four gov …

The Movement for Socialism (MAS) received a heavy blow in the regional second round on Sunday by adding defeats in the four Bolivian departments at stake. His leadership, starting with former president Evo Morales, has already announced that a stage of internal evaluations and internal restructuring is coming. In the March elections, the party of Morales and President Luis Arce found themselves with the departments of Cochabamba, Oruro and Potosí, losing those of Beni and Santa Cruz. From now on, he will not be able to govern in La Paz, Tarija, Pando and Chuquisaca either. The results, however, do not describe clear leadership in the opposition, which remains dispersed.

In the department of La Paz, which constitutes the political center of the country, the MAS candidate Franklin Flores obtained 44.34% of the vote, far from the 55.66% obtained by the opponent of the Jallalla group, Santos Quispe., scanned 90 percent of the minutes. The ruling party never needed a runoff there and He had already lost in March in the city of La Paz d’El Alto, historic stronghold of the MAS, at the hands of former Senate leader Eva Copa, expelled from the party..

The elected candidate Santos Quispe is the son of Felipe Quispe, “El Mallku”, a peasant leader, MP and popular presidential candidate who died in January. “We are going to dedicate this victory to him, we are going to enter the government with the ajayu (spirit) of Felipe and we are not going to make him look bad, we are going to govern very well with transparency and humility”. Quispe said during the celebration held at El High.

In Tarija, a gas region in the south of the country, the control ended with another clear defeat of the MAS. The ruling Álvaro Ruiz party won 45.56% of the vote against center-right opposition Oscar Montes, from Unidos por Tarija, with 54.44%. Ruiz admitted defeat at a press conference on Monday: “We regret that we did not achieve the victory, but today we have to work from where we are with the same commitment.”

In Chuquisaca, in the south-east of the country and the count already closed, Juan Carlos León, of the MAS, reached 42.68% of the vote against 57.32% for the Quechua leader Damián Condori. And in the northern department of Pando, ruling party Miguel Becerra won 45.32% of the vote against Regis Richter, a former masista leader now in the MTS, who rallied 54.68%, after scrutinizing 99.5% minutes.

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales admitted MAS defeat in all four departments at stake in the ballot, and assured that he will convene a “emergency meeting” to assess “why, what happened and what needs to be done”. During the celebration of a union anniversary in the region of the tropic of Cochabamba, the former president recalled that the new regional political map looks like that of 2005, the year of the election of department governors for the first time, when the MAS got three posts and six more were in the hands of the opposition.

For his part, the former vice-president Álvaro García Linera said that it is no longer enough for the MAS to support a candidate to win an election in the absence of regional leadership. “Now this is not enough because there is a fragmentation of the popular field. Before there was an association between the popular and the MAS, but today the popular has many heads at the regional level,” said García Linera in an interview with Bolivisión.

While the Executive Secretary of the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB), Juan Carlos Huarachi, stated that what happened is an “ear pull”Therefore, he proposed to carry out a “thorough assessment of the policy instrument” to reconfigure it. “A change is what the people are asking for: new political frameworks, new union officials”Huarachi said in statements on Erbol Radio.

From the opposition sidewalk, they stepped out to celebrate Sunday’s results as expected. “I congratulate the governors-elect Santos Quispe, Regis Richter, Damián Condori and Óscar Montes. La Paz, Pando, Chuquisaca and Tarija have clearly expressed their rejection of corruption, abuse, persecution and discrimination, ”said the former president and leader of the main opposition force. Carlos mesa.

In the same line Luis Fernando Camacho, governor-elect of the department of Santa Cruz, the country’s economic engine, said that “voters were not intimidated by his confrontational messages and because of the blackmail that if they did not vote for MAS, they would receive no resources, no vaccines, no jobs. “The former civic leader and one of the main defendants in the case opened up for the coup against Evo Morales, for which the former de facto president Jeanine Áñez pointed out a month ago that ‘with the results of Sunday’s elections “democracy wins, MAS abuses and authoritarianism loses”.

Meanwhile, the elected mayor of the city of El Alto, Eva CupHe noted that the people “expect renewal, policy changes, politicians to keep their word and put aside discrimination, racism and separatism.” The Alteña authority pointed out that there is a “MAS leadership which believes itself to be all-powerful” which does not allow the department of La Paz to develop.

Turnout in Sunday’s regional elections reached 83%, a significant figure given that this is a second departmental round. The new authorities of Bolivia’s regional and municipal governments are expected to take office on May 3.