VICTORY FOR DEMOCRACY FOLLOWING BOLIVIAN ELECTION

On Oct. 18, a miracle happened in South America: Despite severe political tension in the country, the authoritarian tendencies of the Jeanine Añez administration, and the expectation of violence following the election, Bolivia had a clean and fair election.

Moreover, all candidates respected the results of the election and many of the international observers reported the election in favorable terms. Not only was it a decisive victory for the Movement of Socialism party (MAS), it was a victory for democracy in Bolivia.

The outcome is a reverse of a trend found so commonly in Latin America. From Chile’s Allende regime, to Argentina’s Perón era, to the removal of Brazil’s Goulart administration, all of these countries have seen democratically elected, populist governments fall under the crushing weight of their militaries, oftentimes backed by the CIA or more openly by the U.S. government.

The United States enjoys the privileges of having a military that doesn’t invade domestic policy making. But in Latin America, it was, and to an extent, still is, rare for the military to not be actively involved in the country’s politics. The recent political crisis in Bolivia proved that this trend is still alive and well.

Seeking fourth term

The crisis began in November of last year, when general elections were held.

Prior to then, Evo Morales had been the president of Bolivia since 2006 and was running for his fourth term. The Bolivian Constitution initially only allowed for the president to hold two consecutive terms. However, Morales had managed to garner three terms, with a potential fourth term ahead. He achieved his third term by appealing to the nation’s Supreme Court, since the constitution was amended after he took office. The court obliged – agreeing that he was sworn in with an outdated version, the justices found that his first term legally did not count in accordance with the current constitution.

Morales was able to run again in 2019 because of a separate supreme court decision where the justices ruled that denying him to run in the general election was a violation of his human rights.

The controversy fueled by the second court ruling, particularly among the non-indigenous Bolivian population, was further exacerbated on the eve of the election in November.

In Bolivia, there is a two-round election cycle for president. This essentially means that multiple candidates run in the first round; if it is a close race, all but the top two candidates are eliminated and those two compete in a second round. However, if the leading candidate receives a majority of the votes (at least 50%) or receives between 40 and 50% of the vote while being at least 10% ahead of the nearest contender, that person wins the presidency outright, and no second round is held.

To complicate matters, Bolivia also has a quick-count system, in which results are surveyed to give analysts a rough idea of the results of the election before ballot counting is complete. The quick count showed Morales ahead of his top rival, Carlos Mesa, with 45% percent to Mesa’s 38%. Based on the rules of the election, it seemed that the election might enter a second round. Yet after the formal ballot counting concluded, Morales had won 47% of the vote, compared to Mesa’s 36%, handing Morales the immediate victory.

Military steps in

Suspicious, the opposition demanded a second round, anyway. Shortly after, the Organization of American States, or OAS, audited the election results under the request of President Morales. The audit report was critical of the election, alleging that election fraud and tampering took place. The OAS called for new elections, along with a new election commission. Later investigation of the election would criticize the OAS report, finding various flaws in its methods of reporting. To this day, experts are divided on whether there was really enough evidence of election fraud.

Regardless, within hours Morales would oblige and announce a fresh election, with a new election commission. But this did not stop opposition protesters calling for him to step down and, two hours after the declaration of new elections, Bolivian military leaders “recommended” that he resign from office.

Morales would resign that day, following the resignation of most of his cabinet. With the collapse of the Morales government, the next person in line of succession for president was a senator, Jeanine Áñez, an outspoken opponent of the ruling MAS party.

Surprise turn

For the past year, she led a right-wing, caretaker government intent on silencing dissidents, suppressing protesters and her political opponents, and attacking journalists. With the military behind her and the delay of elections that were supposed to be held earlier this year, Bolivia never seemed so close, in recent times, to slipping into an authoritarian regime.

Then, this month’s election was held without serious incident, something that caught me off guard. The runaway winner was socialist Luis Arce, economic minister under Morales, gaining more than a 20% lead and thus avoiding a second round of voting.

Bolivia’s luck is not universal in Latin American countries, and the country should count this as a blessing. Many left-wing, populist governments have been overthrown in military coup d’etats, sometimes under the direction of the CIA or other American institutions. This is because left-wing, and particularly, left-wing, populist governments have been known to be uncooperative to American interests in the region (including business interests). Especially during the Cold War, the U.S. was known for supporting coup d’etats that favored our own interests in the name of “democracy.” This, despite many of these engineered governments being significantly more authoritarian than the “undemocratic” leadership from which they were claiming to rescue the country.

History has told us to be extremely skeptical of the military’s role in politics. From Caesar’s Rome to Pinochet’s Chile, military involvement often comes at the price of democracy. Whether identifying as left-wing or right-wing, we must acknowledge when the military “recommends” that you resign, it is not a mere request – it is a threat and prelude to a coup. And if that threat is legitimized by allowing the opposition to bypass election results that were unfavorable to them, what is to stop neighboring country’s militaries from similarly installing regimes favorable to their interests?

Hence, MAS’s victory was in part a message to the Bolivian military that its people do not condone military intervention into domestic politics. And as supporters of democracy, we should see that this recent outcome is as it should be.