Bolivia: Government, Majority Party Reach Agreement to Hold Elections October 18th

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The mobilizations and blockades calling for elections on September 6th came to an end yesterday afternoon when the two MAS candidates, Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca, called on their party supporters to demobilize and lift the protest measures, reported the newspapers El Deber and Página Siete.

In addition, the Legislative Assembly and the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) are expected to sign an agreement to hold the presidential elections on October 18th.

According to El Deber, the agreement was secured as a result of a week-long effort by Supreme Electoral Court Chief Judge Salvador Romero Ballivián and the Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB), the Unitary Union Confederation of Bolivian Peasant Workers (CSUTCB), Intercultural, Bartolinas, and other organizations with the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) as an observer.

Bolivia’s interim president, Jeanine Áñez, yesterday morning called for a “national political dialogue” with the COB leaders, the protest organizers, but also with the electoral body’s members, all candidates and the presidents of the Chamber of Deputies, Sergio Choque, and the Senate, Eva Copa.

The Catholic Church was also invited to be part of the dialogue as an observer, according to a note signed by Áñez, who is also a candidate for the Juntos alliance party. The goal of the meeting “is to confirm the electoral date and suspend the blockades that are preventing the passage of oxygen to Covid-19 patients,” the president said in her announcement.

The roadblocks have been in place since last Monday in protest against the postponement of the country’s general elections from September 6th to October 18th, and were called by organizations like the COB, a political ally of Evo Morales’ party, and the so-called Unity Pact, which includes indigenous and peasant unions linked to the ex-president.

The supply of medical oxygen has caused considerable concern in the country, where the interim government blames these protests for supply issues. The interim government has set up “air bridges” to take oxygen to different regions, but medical unions and hospital administrations have alerted that these supplies are insufficient to care for Covid-19 patients as well as others.

The interim government denounced to the Organization of American States that at least 31 patients died in Bolivia from lack of medical oxygen due to the roadblocks.

Bolivia officially counts 3,524 deaths and 87,891 infections of the novel coronavirus among its eleven and a half million inhabitants.

The country’s general elections have been pending since the annulment of the October 2019 elections following an OAS audit that uncovered electoral fraud.

Source: infobae