The Mas d’Evo Morales fell in the 4 disputed governorates in Bolivia

Evo Morales’ ruling Socialist Movement received a heavy blow in the state’s second round of elections on Sunday. I lost in all four quarters at stake, which leaves a map in which it controls only three of the nine governorates.

The departments of La Paz, Tarija, Pando and Chuquisaca went to the polls again, as no candidate reaches more than 50% votes or more than 40% with ten points of difference compared to the second most voted candidate in the subnational elections of March 7.

With the elections of this Sunday closed “the most complex electoral cycle” in the history of Bolivia, as the president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Salvador Romero described it, the process with which the new political map of the country was. defined.

Santos Quispe, from the Jallalla alliance, led the count in La Paz with 59.33%, on the candidacy of Franklin Flores, of the MAS, with 40.67%. Óscar Montes, of the United for Tarija party, led the vote with 58.68% over Álvaro Ruiz, MAS candidate, with 41.32%.

Damian Condori Herrera, from Chuquisaca Somos Todos, also led the scoring with 66.90%, ahead of MAS candidate Juan Carlos León with 33.16%. And to Pando Regis Richter, of the third movement of the system (MTS), led with 58.54% over Miguel Becerra, of the leader of the MAS, with 41.46%.

For this election, the ruling party he expected to win in at least three governorates. In the first round, the ruling party found itself with the governors of Cochabamba, Oruro and Potosí. In Santa Cruz, former presidential candidate Luis Fernando Camacho, of the opposition Creemos party, won; and Beni Alejandro Unzueta, of the Third System Opposition Movement (MTS).

In three of these departments (La Paz, Pando and Tarija), the MAS had also won the first round without the numbers reaching it to avoid the ballot which led to the defeat.

Low involvement

Election day was marked by low voter turnout, despite the fact that voting in Bolivia is compulsory, but according to the president of the TSE it is “normal” for this to happen in the second round processes.

During general evaluations, the elected mayor of El Alto, Eva Copa, displaced by the MAS from her candidacy, warned that there was a leadership within the ruling party “who doesn’t let that grow, does not give opportunities to new leaders ”.

“Unfortunately, this MAS leadership believes itself to be all-powerful. But it’s not like that: the citizens show them that nothing is everlasting, that the accusations are temporary and that according to this we have to start working and put our feet on the ground, ”he said.

Within the MAS itself, the heads of the Senate and deputies, Andrónico Rodríguez and Freddy Mamani, respectively, have agreed to move forward an “in-depth assessment” in strength and adjustments in the game to correct mistakes.

“We must have made mistakes and therefore an evaluation will be made this weekend. This is what we are seeing. Between Friday and Saturday an assessment will be carried out at the national level and we will say what happened and where we went wrong. On this basis, adjustments will be made to the policy instrument, ”said Mamani.

Rodríguez said Sunday’s results “deserve a thorough assessment correct the mistakes that we surely had as a Movement towards Socialism, ”examined the website of the newspaper Página Siete.

The head of the Senate also said that in the coming weeks, the MAS will organize long regional and departmental meetings and a national plenary, and at these meetings or not the need to change the regional leadership of the party.

Complaints about the behavior of the MAS whose main leader is former President Morales date back to the former President’s decision to ignore the outcome of a consultation and move forward, in 2019, to attempt a fourth consecutive term.

Morales went to the elections, which culminated amid a nationwide scandal over allegations of vote manipulation, which led to growing protest and clashes with the police in which youth from the MAS base participated herself. These events culminated in the resignation of Morales and his party abroad and the subsequent denunciation of a contested coup.

Source: Télam, Europa Press and Clarín

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