Evo Morales Is Re-elected President of Bolivia in First Round

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – With 95.38 percent of the votes counted, Evo Morales achieved 46.86 percent against the 36.72 percent for liberal Carlos Mesa. With these figures, Morales has a 10.14 percent lead and guarantees a direct victory.

The Organization of American States (OAS) asked Bolivia’s Supreme Electoral Court to explain why the broadcast of preliminary results was interrupted on Sunday evening, October 20th.

The Electoral Observation Mission consists of 92 monitors and follows the elections in Bolivia and the process of publishing the results.

The last partial result on the page of the Bolivian Plurinational Electoral Body (OEP) was published at 7:40 PM on Sunday evening. The report stated that 89 percent of the votes had been counted, with 45.28 percent of votes to Evo Morales and 38.16 percent to Carlos Mesa.

Around 11:00 PM on Sunday, the Supreme Electoral Court had stopped counting the votes. The announcement was that counting would be resumed on Monday morning.

The current president, Evo Morales, has been running for a fourth consecutive term, with his candidacy for re-election challenged by the opposition, which maintains that Morales is disrespecting the vote and the choice of citizens in the 2016 referendum.

In February 2016, he lost a referendum on the possibility of re-election. The “no” option obtained 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”.

Thousands of people took to the streets of six Bolivian provinces on Monday after learning the latest election results. There were clashes with the police, who were forced to use tear gas to discourage demonstrators.

Opposition candidate Carlos Mesa called on Monday for a civil mobilization to prevent fraud in the counting of votes in the Bolivian elections, claiming that the electoral body follows President Evo Morales’ orders so as to prevent a second round.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo said that he was following the counting of votes “with concern”.

Source: Forum, Agência Brasil, Opinión

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