Barrioflores already tweeted it, but El Deber published an Ipsos/AOM poll of likely presidential candidates for Bolivia’s December 2009 general election.
The poll gave Evo only 40% support, followed in great distance by a number of other challengers: Carlos Mesa (8%), Rubén Costas (6%), Tuto Quiroga (5%), Manfred Reyes Villa (4%), Savina Cuéllar (4%), Víctor Hugo Cárdenas (3%), Samuel Doria Medina (3%), René Joaquino (2%), Mario Cossío (2%), José Luis Paredes (1%), and Eduardo Rodríguez Veltzé (1%). That still leaves about 20% undecided. And I’m not sure why Alejo Véliz or Felipe Quispe weren’t included in the survey, since both also have publicly stated their intentions to run in December. But what do these numbers mean?
Obviously, the numbers don’t mean much at this point. The campaign hasn’t started yet, and won’t for a few months. A number of likely candidates will drop out between then & now (or become VP candidates), which will alter the standings. At the same time, the polls look only at the country’s nine departmental capitals plus El Alto. While these cities hold two thirds of the population, that still leaves a significant share of voters unaccounted for. Finally, early polls have been notoriously unreliable. The only lesson from previous polls has been that those w/ early leads tend to place second, or worse.
The positive note is that Evo has a substantial lead over his nearest rival, former president (and still fairly popular/respected) Carlos Mesa. Coupled w/ his likely higher margins of support in the rural countryside, Evo is probably still comfortably above the 50% mark. But if the numbers are accurate (and both Ipsos & Apoyo Opinión y Mercado have been fairly reliable over the years), it also means that Evo is on the defensive (as others have commented).
But here’s the rub: The new constitution approved in January introduced a two-round system (TRS) for presidential election (see Article 167). Previously, if no candidate won a simple majority (50%+1), the newly elected legislature (also elected in the general election, and on ballots tied to the presidential votes) would select a new president from among the top two candidates. Because of Bolivia’s mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral system, w/ small district magnitudes (seats per department), the first place party could often secure a near majority of seats if it came close to a nation-wide simple majority. For example, in 2002 Goni won only 22.5% of the votes, but his party took 27.7% of the lower chamber seats & 42.3% of the upper chamber (for 29.9% of the total seats). I’ve little doubt that w/ 40% of the national vote, Evo could probably secure very close to 50% of the total legislative seats. Even if he didn’t, if enough small parties preferred MAS over the next competitor, Evo could put together enough congressional votes to put him over the 79 necessary parliamentary votes.
Of course, the new constitution also states that a top candidate w/ at least 40% of the vote wins outright if he/she leads the second place candidate by at least 10% of the vote. If these poll numbers stood up in December, that would secure Evo’s reelection. But if one of them could rise out of the pack—in other words, if Evo’s opponents can coordinate & rally behind one lone candidate—he could be in trouble.
Bolivia’s new TRS presidential electoral system has added an interesting twist to the upcoming December 2009 general election. If Evo doesn’t win an outright majority (he still could), and if the opposition can get w/in 10 points of Evo’s lead (it might not), the election could (as it often does in France, another TRS country) hinge on who places second.
