Bolivia repeats subnational voting in more than 100 polling stations in five regions

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Voters in about 125 polling stations in five departments of Bolivia are repeating this Sunday, March 21st, the voting of the last subnational elections rom beginning of March due to events that affected the final registration of those votes and that can be decisive in municipalities such as Sucre, the official capital of the country.

In these places there were incidents such as the burning of ballot boxes, counting errors or alterations of minutes due to erasures, as well as difficulties in the installation of suffrage in the most remote places of the country during the electoral day of last March 7.

The voting began at 8:00 AM local time and will last for nine hours amid biosecurity measures in some precincts of departments such as Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca, Potosí, Beni and Pando.

IN SUCRE IT IS DECISIVE

In more than a dozen municipalities of Santa Cruz, the most extensive department and economic engine of the country, the voting is repeated due to the cases of voting urns burning that took place two weeks ago when some groups denounced an alleged irregular transfer of foreign people that, according to what was said, influenced the final result.

In this department there are about a hundred tables enabled for their registered voters to vote again, for which electoral judges have been trained again and the necessary material has been provided.

Read: Eva Copa – the woman who broke with Evo Morales to become Bolivia’s greatest electoral phenomenon

In Sucre around 600 voters must repeat the voting and this will determine the winner of the Mayor’s Office of that city, the most disputed municipal seat in the country.

The difference between the candidates of the governing Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) and Republica 2025 is a little more than 300 votes, since the former has obtained 33.27 percent against 33.07 percent of the latter.

Precisely, the Republica 2025 party had denounced an alleged fraud due to alterations in the ballots and the minutes of the tables observed by its delegates, something that so far has not given clarity on the winner.

In departments such as Potosí, voting is taking place in three rural communities, while in the Amazonian department of Beni, voting is being repeated in different towns due to the annulment of some eight minutes that will not have a major impact on the final result.

Finally, voting will be repeated in the also Amazonian department of Pando, in a town where the electoral material could not arrive due to the heavy rains that occurred two weeks ago and which demanded its transportation by canoes through some rivers with the support of the Armed Forces.

SECOND ROUNDS IN FOUR DEPARTMENTS

The subnational elections have pending for this April 11 the second rounds only for the position of governor in the departments of La Paz, Tarija, Chuquisaca and Pando.

The electoral regulation establishes for this case a second round when a candidacy does not exceed 50 percent of the votes or when having passed 40 percent there is not a difference of ten in relation to the second.

The electoral body has set for next May 3, the inauguration of new subnational authorities, among them governors and assemblymen of nine departments together with mayors and councilmen of 339 municipalities.

Source: EFE