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Weekly Report - 20 October 2011 (WR-11-42)

Morales encounters limits of 21st century Socialism

The national vote on 16 October to pick 56 judicial officials for Bolivia’s top courts marked two firsts. It was the first time such a selection process was determined by direct popular vote anywhere in the world. It also appears to have delivered the first electoral defeat to President Evo Morales since he took office in 2006. Preliminary results suggest calls by the opposition for voters to spoil their ballots or leave them blank have met with success: the opposition tried to turn the vote into a plebiscite on Morales, still discredited over the recent police crackdown on indigenous protesters [WR-11-39]. Yet while the result reflects discontent with Morales, it also suggests the limits of popular democracy, a key feature of the model of 21^st century Socialism espoused by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez. It raises questions over the value of allowing the public to vote on such a technical issue, a problem which has cropped up both for Chávez and Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa.

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