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Bolivia Election Results!

Posted: admin on Apr 05 | News, Politics

Today travel was illegal in Bolivia as everyone was required by law to vote or face penalties. Over 5 million Bolivians cast their votes in what seems to be a free and clean election thus far. Most departments are still counting their votes but preliminary results are being confirmed.  The biggest winner is the Movement to Socialism Party or MAS which took 5 out of 9 governorships across the country. The MAS party has not yet conceded 2 of the governship races that exit polling suggests they have lost; Pando and Tarija. The MAS made very convincing wins for the governorships of La Paz, Oruro, Potosí and Cochabamba and barely won in Chuquisaca (Sucre) by 3%, giving MAS control of 5 out of Bolivia’s 9 departments.   The MAS party made major inroads in gubernatorial races in formerly solid opposition states such as Pando (where it garnered 44% of the vote), Beni (38%) and Tarija (43%) but failed to convert these strong showing into electoral wins. In Beni the 25 year old Bolivian-British supermodel that President Morales endorsed as the party candidate for governor lost to the opposition candidate by 6% points. The only department where the MAS did not make a convincing run for governor was in Santa Cruz where MAS lost by wide margins as many had predicted.

In a major upset to the MAS momentum however, they lost the city government races in every department capital city including their home bases of La Paz, Oruro, and Potosi winning only President Evo Morales’ home state of Cochabamba by a slim 4% margin. The MSM party which had been a close ally of the MAS until recent conflicts won the city government race of La Paz by a 14 point margin and it remains to be seen how the recent row between the two parties will develop.   For a detailed breakdown of election results the El Deber newspaper shows pie charts and break downs for each race.  The elections show that the MAS party remains the only political party capable of fielding a national campaign but that it faces strong regional opposition especially in municipal and city governments where it fails to garner much support even in areas where the MAS national and department level candidates are very popular.

To learn more in Spanish see:

http://www.eldeberdigital.com/2010/2010-04-04/index.php

http://www.eldiario.net/

http://www.erbol.com.bo/erbol2009/noticia.php?identificador=2147483926633

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