The recall referendum campaign has started in earnest in Bolivia. On August 10, Bolivian voters in 8 of 9 departments (not Chuquisaca, which only recently elected a prefect) will vote on whether their prefects should keep their posts. They’ll also vote (in all departments) on whether the president, Evo Morales, should keep his.
So far, only the prefect of Cochabamba (Manfred Reyes Villa) is opposed to the recall referendum. All of the other prefects have agreed. The opposition prefects at first were all opposed (Evo’s party controls only two prefectures: Oruro & Potosí) because of the referendum formula:
To remove Evo, the “No” vote must surpass 53.740% of the vote and 1,544,374 total votes. That was Evo’s margin of victory in December 2005.
To remove the prefects, the “No” vote only must surpass the number of vote tallies won in December 2005, which were much lower than those won by Evo. How low are those numbers? Pretty low. In Santa Cruz: 47.877%. In La Paz: 37.988%. In Tarija: 45.646%. In Cochabamba: 47.641%. In Beni: 44.637%. In Pando: 48.032%. The government’s prefects in Oruro & Potosí need 40.954% and 40.690%, respectively.1
Those numbers are clearly stacked in Evo’s favor. Even if a majority of voters want to remove Evo from his seat, they might not be able to. In contrast, even if a majority of voters want to keep their prefects, they might not be able to. In La Paz, nearly two thirds of voters must want to keep their prefect for him to keep his post.
There are, of course, various reasons why supermajorities should be justified for various kinds of votes. But the opposition is rightly nervous about its chances in these contexts. Of course, the Media Luna prefects (Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Tarija) may be counting on their recent autonomy referendum wins to propel them over the necessary mark. All four of those prefects currently have high approval ratings (higher than Evo). The question, of course, is whether approval ratings will translate into votes to keep them in office.
Evo, on the other hand, is relatively safe. Even if he’s lost supporters since December 2005 (which all polling data suggests he has), he can squeak by if he can manage at least 46.26% of the vote or if voter turnout is down or if there’s a high incidence of blank & null votes (reducing the number of “valid” votes). That’s a pretty comfortable position.
I’m surprised that the opposition prefects agreed, a few days ago, to go forward w/ the recall. They were, of course, in a corner. If they didn’t’ go forward w/ the recall, they looked scared, weak, and undemocratic. But they’re agreeing to go forward in a contest that is clearly stacked against them. And they are still negotiating to change the rules so that at least prefects are safe w/ 50%+1 results.
Either way, this is going to be an interesting election, since so much depends on turnout. On the one hand, the prefects will seek to turn out as many voters as possible—particularly their core supporters—to ensure that they can make their high cutoff targets. Evo, on the other hand, will benefit from low voter turnout; if turnout is low enough, he’s safe regardless of the result (hypothetically, if 100% of voters reject Evo, but only 1,544,373 voters vote to remove him, he’s safe). As the election nears, it will be interesting to see whether Evo’s supporters work to drive down voter turnout (as they did during the four recall referendums). The downside, of course, is that if voter turnout is too low, the referendum loses its legitimacy. It’s going to be an interesting month.
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1 For details of the recall referendum law, see CNE’s “Referéndum Revocatorio 2008”.
