Weekly Report - 20 February 2020 (WR-20-07)

It is being widely reported, based on comments by MAS sources to national daily El Deber, that while the party’s presidential nominee Luis Arce has been approved, former president Evo Morales (2006-2019) will be disqualified from running for senate. TSE president Salvador Romero insists deliberations are still ongoing, but the MAS – possibly acting on information from its delegate on the TSE, Melvin Siñani – has already begun to prepare its response.

MAS officials declared an internal emergency on 19 February and promised to challenge the verdict, although a party senator, Adriana Salvatierra, insisted this would not involve organising protests. Morales’ legal team immediately suggested an appeal to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), arguing that neither of the likely grounds for his elimination – his refugee status in Argentina since December 2019, or the criminal charges issued against him by Jeanine Áñez’s interim government – will stand up to international legal scrutiny.

Arce’s apparent survival, however, is a welcome relief for the MAS, which had feared that the interim government would seek to exclude the party from the presidential contest altogether (WR-20-06). Arce faced similar charges to Morales, but there is not the same strength of feeling against him, and his disqualification was pursued less vociferously by opponents of the MAS.  Morales’ elimination may yet even prove beneficial to Arce’s presidential campaign, strengthening the claim that he will not simply be a puppet of the controversial former president, and helping him to win back former MAS voters alienated by Morales.

Presidential polling

An electoral survey released by Ciesmori on 16 February, the first since the campaign began, shows Arce on course for a substantial first-round lead but suggests that a potential second-round would be too close to call. Arce placed first in the poll with 31.6%, ahead of centrist Carlos Mesa (who came second in the annulled 2019 elections) on 17.1%, Áñez on 16.5%, and the right-wing Luis Fernando Camacho on 9.6%. Evangelical pastor Chi Hyun Chung, who took a surprise third place in 2019, remains steady on 5.4%, while the other four candidates, including former president Jorge Quiroga (2001-2002), all polled below 2%.

Arce and the MAS celebrated these results, but his lead is likely to narrow in the coming months. Camacho announced on 18 February that he is dropping out of the contest, and Quiroga seems likely to follow suit. Both have been closely aligned with Áñez in the past, and will encourage their supporters to vote for her - although a TSE statement on 19 February suggested it may already be too late for any candidate to be officially removed from the ballot paper.

Asked about a second round of voting, respondents backed Áñez in a theoretical run-off against Arce by 43.6% to 42.3%, although this difference falls within the poll’s margin of error. Mesa and Arce were even more closely matched, with the latter favoured by just 40.8% to 40.7%. The contest between Mesa and Áñez for second place will prove highly significant, as Arce seems unlikely to secure the 40% of votes needed to avoid a run-off. Mesa and Áñez have little in common beyond a shared antipathy for Morales, and with him possibly out of the picture it is by no means guaranteed that Áñez’s conservative Christian support base would back Mesa’s neoliberal centrism in a second-round vote, or vice versa.

Áñez’s legitimacy

Jeanine Áñez’s own candidacy had been swiftly approved by the TSE, despite a challenge from the MAS, which contended that she was constitutionally prohibited from running for president while holding the interim presidency. Questions over the legitimacy of her government seemed set to be reignited when constitutional court (TCP) judge Petronilo Flores told a legislative commission on 13 February that her de facto succession to the presidency “has no legal value and is not binding”. But while MAS officials were more than happy to take the opportunity to criticise Áñez, the earlier desire to force her out of office seems to have passed, with attention instead focused fully on the electoral campaign.

End of preview - This article contains approximately 729 words.

Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article

Not a Subscriber?

Choose from one of the following options

• Subscribe
• Sign up for a one-time, 14-day trial