RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – With 99.99 percent of the polls counted yesterday morning, Bolivia’s election results give Evo Morales the win.
The current president has 47.07 percent of total votes and his main opponent, Carlos Mesa, 36.51 percent.
The difference between the candidates is 10.56 percent. According to Bolivian electoral legislation, in order to win in the first round, more than 40 percent of votes are required, with at least a ten percent difference from the runner-up.
The Bolivian presidential elections took place last Sunday, October 20th, and the counting was followed by controversy. In a polarized scenario between Evo Morales and Carlos Mesa, accusations from both sides abounded.
Morales accused Carlos Mesa of being a delinquent. Carlos Mesa claims Morales defrauded the elections.
The Observation Mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) pointed out issues such as the lack of security in the storage of ballots and the interruption in counting them and called for a second round to be held in the country due to the small difference in votes between the candidates.
According to Gerardo de Icaza, coordinator of the Electoral Observation Department, the credibility of the country’s electoral justice system would be questioned and, therefore, even if the ten percent difference were to be achieved, the second round should be ensured.
If there is a second round, it will be held on December 15th. The inauguration will take place on January 22nd, 2020.
So far, on the website of Bolivia’s Plurinational Electoral Body (OEP), where the vote count can be monitored, Evo Morales counts 2,889,074 votes, while Carlos Mesa holds 2,240,894. The last update was released at 8 AM yesterday.
If confirmed, it will be Evo Morales‘ fourth consecutive term, the first election in which he does not reach a majority of more than 50 percent of votes on the first round. His candidacy for re-election is widely questioned.
In February 2016, Morales lost a referendum on the possibility of re-election. The Bolivians voted “no,” with 51.3 percent of votes. However, a decision by the Constitutional Court in 2017 enabled Morales to continue running for re-election indefinitely, claiming that it is a human right to “elect and be elected”.
The opposition claims that Morales is disrespecting the vote and the citizens’ choice in the 2016 referendum.
On Sunday, after the poll was over, the countdown began. One of the methods adopted by the OEP consists of a rapid transmission of preliminary results, dubbed “Trep”. Also on Sunday, the “Trep” pointed out a preliminary sum with 83 percent of votes counted, with Morales ahead of Mesa by a difference of about eight percent.
The update on Trep was interrupted, while the manual general counting continued. One of the members of the Supreme Electoral Court resigned, considering the suspension of Trep as a “senseless” decision.
The counting using Trep was resumed on Monday evening, October 21st. In the new scenario, Morales had substantially increased his advantage, reaching the ten percent needed for his victory in the first round.
On Thursday, October 24th, 95 percent of votes had been recorded in the preliminary system, with five percent of votes remaining from the most remote areas.
Protests began across the country, with groups attacking and setting fire to the Electoral Justice headquarters in six states. Opposition candidate Carlos Mesa accused the Electoral Justice and the government of mass fraud and said he would not acknowledge the result.
Morales denounced the violence and said there was an attempted coup in the country to invalidate the election. Faced with the violence, regional courts struggled to continue counting the votes.
Source: Agência Brasil