Rigged elections will maintain dictatorship and impunity in Bolivia

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) Ten months after Evo Morales’ resignation, the dictatorship in Bolivia is still intact and winning elections, the date of which was set by force. The dictator left, but the dictatorship continues to control the country with; a legal structure with which it supplanted the Republic, the force of narco-criminal groups, the impunity guaranteed by the control of the Legislative Branch, and of judicial tribunals, judges and prosecutors. The government which was supposed to be transitional, is an interim hostage and the upcoming elections on the 18th of October are rigged to maintain the dictatorship and impunity.

To rig is “to prepare, or to avail of, something with deception or trickery” it is that which is “prepared or manipulated”. Deception is “to make someone believe that something false is true” and this is what the electoral system designed and operated by Evo Morales’ dictatorship is, an integral part of the 21st Century Socialism or Castrochavism’s model. Fraud is in the system, and is the system.

Along with the supplantation of the Republic’s Constitution by the “Plurinational State” in Bolivia, universal suffrage practices have been eliminated, the number of Senators has been increased to 36, the equality of all citizens has been eliminated, seven (7) new “special, indigenous, or native peasantry” districts have been imposed with a fascist corporate system, the “community vote” has been instituted. A new electoral system has been imposed, one in which someone with nearly 26% of the votes can garnish 50% of the Senate members, and with 30% of the votes “wins” the majority of the entire Legislative Assembly. Anyone can be President in the first round “with 40% of valid votes, with a difference of at least 10% from the second runner-up».

The constitution, laws, territorial distribution, assignment of congressional seats and the entire system is designed so that in the coca-harvesters’ and rural control zones that have been taken over by the dictatorship, they can obtain congressional representatives with a tenth, hundredth, or a thousandth quantity of votes than in the cities. They have manipulated the individual personal identification civil registry, which makes it virtually impossible to purge/cleanse the electoral registry without completely revamping it on the basis of the principles of equality and universal and secret suffrage.

This system created to “simulate democracy” is called “vote-catching dictatorship” because every citizen “votes but does not elect” and its application has been vastly documented in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Correa’s Ecuador. Evo Morales was unexpectedly caught in flagrancy applying this model and his misdeeds were amply documented for committing electoral fraud, counterfeiting, and other crimes during the past elections on October 20th of last year, reasons why he resigned and fled from Bolivia.

Senator Janine Añez who assumed the Presidency should have installed and directed a “transitional government” to “conduct free and fair elections based on the secret universal suffrage”. Her mandate is to end the dictatorship, acknowledging the existence and validity of the Republic’s Constitution in order to reinstate the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, the rule of law, and the separation and independence of the branches of government, dismantle the narco-state, and stop the vote-catching dictatorship.

These past ten months, the dictatorship has displayed its intact strength maintaining its control over all branches of government, including the Executive. There isn’t a single case of filing of charges against it for the massacres and proven crimes. The corruption cases have been transferred to the interim government. The Plurinational State, its counterfeited Constitution, and all despicable laws continue to exist. The instrument used for the crimes committed by the fugitive dictator and his accomplices is the most important political party. The dictatorship’s candidate is a former Minister who should be legally tried for multiple cases of corruption. Judges continue to pervert the course of justice in favor of the dictatorship. All of this is known by the “opposition’s candidates” but they all participate in the rigged elections without a qualm!?

If Interim President Jeanine Añez -who just removed herself from being a candidate- does not acknowledge the existence and validity of the Republic with its Constitution of 1967, amended in 1994, the upcoming elections on 18 October can result a victory, on the first round, for the dictatorship and Evo Morales will be back immediately to repress and persecute.

If there is a second round and an “opposition candidate” ascends to the presidency, he/she will be the “new hostage of the dictatorship”, will not have a parliamentarian majority and no way to have it without some agreement with the dictatorship, he/she will be subjected to the judges and to the dictatorship’s control over the constitutionality of his/her acts, will be threatened by the dictatorship’s prosecutors and will be surrounded by the dictatorship’s Civil Servants in his/her own Executive Branch. The rigged elections will have accomplished the purpose of its design which is to maintain the dictatorship and impunity.

*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.

Translated from Spanish by; Edgar L. Terrazas, member of the American Translators Association, ATA # 234680.