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Junio 11, 2005
What Will New Elections Solve?
Miguel C. (Ciao!) nicely sums up the likely outcome of the upcoming elections that the new President, Eduardo Rodriguez is likely to call:
Of course, such an election would mean an entirely new parliament as well, since Bolivia's electoral system is a "parliamentarized presidential" one. And there's no reason to believe that new elections will solve the problems, since it's clear that no party would win a simple nation-wide majority (perhaps at best 20%), meaning the newly elected parliament would select the president. Given the way things are polarized, coalition-building will remain difficult. But I still guess it'll be someone from the MNR-MIR-ADN side of the equation; rather than Evo, who despite being the only potential anti-liberal candidate, has proved incapable of making friends w/ other relevant political actors. Most likely, unable to win outright, Evo will find himself locked out of power (even if he's the front-runner) by a broad liberal coalition (MNR-MIR-ADN).
One possibility is that Evo Morales once again flip-flops and moves back towards the center by distancing himself from the more radical sectors, which by the way, are still mobilized in El Alto!
The "alcaldes" of most of the major cities were elected from citizen's groups even though most of them tried to distance themselves from their traditional political party pasts. Some like, Juan del Granado (MSM) from La Paz, are very much left-of-center. Most of them called on Vaca Diez to forfeit his claim to the presidency. Del Granado even participated in a hunger strike until Vaca Diez and Cossio turned down the job. If Evo can somehow convince them to enter a coalition, then we may see MAS have a realistic shot at the whole thing.
Posted by eduardo at Junio 11, 2005 05:05 PM