A Bolivian Opposition Primary?

Welcome back from the holidays and welcome back to some updated analysis of Bolivian election politics.

Three weeks from today Bolivians will go to the polls yet again, this time in a referendum on a new national constitution backed by President Evo Morales and MAS. The fact of the vote itself was a major breakthrough, the product of tense, internationally monitored, negotiations between MAS and its regional and party opponents. In October, a wide array of Bolivia’s warring factions agreed to bring the proposed constitution to a vote, in exchange for MAS acceptance of hundreds of amendments large and small.

In the view of some, the deal was wise political compromise that brought Bolivia back from the brink of even wider violent conflict. In the view of others, the sweeping changes were a sellout by MAS, rendering the new document little different in effect than the one Bolivia has now.

Regardless of one’s view on the compromises that paved the way for the January 25th vote, two stories here are worth more attention.

The first is what the vote this month signifies as a measure of ongoing Morales/MAS public support. The second is the call from some corners of the opposition for a nationwide ‘primary’ vote to determine one sole candidate to go up against Morales in the new Presidential elections likely next December.

Morales and the Voters

If you track the trend line in voter support for Evo Morales over the past six years, the steady and significant rise in his support is indisputable.

As a dark horse presidential candidate in 2002 Morales leapt to a surprise second place finish behind the winner, former president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, largely thanks to the suspicious public denunciation against Morales by the then-U.S. Ambassador. That strong finish gave Morales nearly a quarter of the national vote.

Three years later, in the December 2005 elections Morales won, he garnered a historic 53% of the vote, more than double his support in 2002. A few months later, in the July vote for delegates to the Constituent Assembly, Morales was not directly on the ballot, but his MAS party surpassed his previous vote total once again, slightly, winning 54%.

Then last August, in a nationwide referendum on the continued service of Morales and the regional governors, a vote demanded by Morales opponents, the President trumped even the most optimistic expectations, wining a lopsided 2/3 of the vote to stay in office (while two of his most vociferous opponents were tossed out of office by strong majorities).

So the question now is: How will Evo do on January 25th?

The vote in three weeks is not only on a new constitution; it is a new measurement of Morales’ popular support with Bolivian voters. Few serious observers think that MAS will come up short of the simple majority needed to make the new constitution the law. But there is plenty of room for Morales to fall far short of the 2/3 he received in August. If he does, the opposition that seems currently to be almost neutered will smell opportunity once more.

Plenty has transpired since the August vote that can alter the country’s political math. Violence tore through two departments in September. Morales declared open season on the U.S. government, expelling the U.S. ambassador and the DEA, and getting hit back with suspension of Bolivia’s participation in the Andean Trade Agreement (at a potential cost of 20,000 jobs). The Morales administration has also been hit with a series of corruption charges, ranging from accusations that his Minister of the Presidency helped smuggle in trucks without paying the required customs charges, to Morales’ placement of a 25-year-old with no professional qualifications as the chief administrator under the Governor of Cochabamba.

If MAS wins the vote this month with 55%, say, it will declare a sturdy victory. But if its support falls even 5% from the difficult-to-meet 2/3 it won in August, watch for opponents to rally.

The Opposition Primary

If the MAS-backed constitution wins, as expected, only then will the real campaigning begin. Approval would trigger a new round of elections in December for President, Governors, and Mayors, all across the country.

Two things will stand out as very different from elections past. The first is that Evo Morales will be constitutionally empowered to stand for reelection. That is a big change in a country where presidential reelection has been long prohibited, a change that Morales fought for hard.

The second is the very real possibility that Morales’ chief opponents might agree to another historic first – a national primary which would select which one of them would take on Morales, one on one.

One of those would-be opponents, Burger King magnate and former candidate Samuel Doria Medina (pictured above) is pushing a plan for a Bolivian primary among Morales’ chief potential opponents. That would include, as a start, himself and two former Sanchez de Lozada Vice-Presidents, Carlos Mesa and Victor Hugo Cardenas. The three, and potentially others such as former President and PODEMOS leader, Jorge Quiroga, would square off in a national vote in which all voters who wish could participate.

Nothing in Bolivian law provides for such a vote, nor does it prohibit one to my knowledge. The results would have to be honored by nothing more than each candidate’s word.

Why would this be a politically brilliant move?

First, it wraps the opposition in the mantle of popular democracy. “Who picked Evo to be the MAS candidate?” they will ask. “Not the people,” they will say. Second, it generates excitement, a nationwide election in which Morales is left to look on from the sidelines. Mexico’s disgraced PRI party invoked a similar ‘let’s have a primary’ move to help resurrect itself in the last election.

Most importantly, if the opposition really can narrow itself down to one candidate against Morales, that gives it the best chance possible (still, to be quite clear, a long shot) of beating him in a year. Evo benefits enormously from being the sole candidate on the electoral ‘left’ while the ‘right’ always manages to let individual ambitions saddle it with a line-up of candidates who split the field.

So welcome back from time off to contemplate cheese dip and Santa instead of the wild terrain of Bolivian politics. With three weeks to go, politics is back on.


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