Bolivia Election: Voters Rebuke Evo Morales By Casting Invalid Ballots

LA PAZ, Bolivia — Most Bolivians who voted in Sunday's election to choose the country's top judges cast invalid ballots in what would be a stinging rebuke for President Evo Morales, according to unofficial partial results.

If the results hold, it would the first defeat at the polls for the leftist coca-grower's union leader of his nearly six-year presidency.

Official results were not expected for at least five days in the vote for 56 judgeships on Bolivia's top four tribunals, including its supreme and constitutional courts.

But an unofficial count by the Ipsos, Opinion y Mercado polling firm found 61 percent of voters cast ballots that were either null or blank. It said its count was based on 75 percent of the vote.

A sober-looking Morales declared himself "very pleased with the public's participation" in brief words to the news media. He asserted that "those who called the boycott have failed."

Opposition leaders had called on voters to cast invalid ballots to protest what they considered a power grab.

They contended that the election would erode the independence of the judiciary and strengthen Morales because the 114 candidates were chosen by a Congress dominated by his governing MAS movement.

A leading opposition politician, Samuel Doria Medina, said the results proved the election was "illegitimate." He called for starting the judicial selection process from scratch.

Under electoral rules, only a majority of valid votes are needed to fill each judicial post.

Prior to a new constitution championed by Morales and approved by voters, the legislature chose judges for the top courts.

The opposition accuses Morales of using the judiciary to persecute adversaries. Several opposition leaders are in exile after being accused of sedition. Morales comfortably won re-election in December 2009 but his popularity has plummeted in the past year over policy decisions that angered many Bolivians.

First, Morales declared just after Christmas that he was ending subsidies on gasoline; he reversed himself after major protests.

Then he insisted on a highway through a lowlands indigenous preserve, and drew further public outrage when police last month attacked Indians marching against it.

Morales has indicated he wants to run for a third term in 2014.

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Associated Press writer Frank Bajak contributed from Lima, Peru.

Comments

[GOP Incorporated]

04:58 PM on 10/19/2011

El es un huevon!!!

MAS nada mas!

[ramman]

11:17 AM on 10/18/2011

I watched the Francis Ford Coppola documentary called South of the Border on HBO he did of Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, and the leaders from Argentina and Chile and how they came into power and their relationship with the U.S. during the Bush years and I must say it wasn't good at all as they were shown as they victims through out the whole interview. But what puzzles me is how this guy and Chavez speak democracy but time after time keep finding ways to align themselves by changing the laws to make sure they are always in the running for the Presidency at not allowing the elections to be more open for others to have a chance once his term is over. I know this to be fact because on the documentary one of the other Presidents interviewed and a close friend to Chavez told Chavez if he wants to practice real democracy then he needs to make the elections more opened. So I guess here people are showing some kind of discontent with the power grab thing as they begin to see what this guy is about.

[American 69]

02:26 PM on 10/17/2011

For anyone that actually beleives that Morales will accede to the wishes of his people, I suggest reading the various histories of Latin American "Democracies". He's got the power and won't relinquish it unless he's actually deposed by Bolivian citizens. But then.......

[LMPE]

02:23 PM on 10/17/2011

If I was going to cast an invalid ballot, I would use it to say something really nasty about the candidate whom I don't like.

[Richard Pearce banned]

07:39 AM on 10/17/2011

So, from what I can gleen in a few minutes, the old system for appointing judges had them selected by Congress, and the new system for appointing judges has them selected by the public at large from a list of candidates prepared by Congress.

Which makes one wonder who would describe going from making the final selection to preparing a short list for others to make the final selection from a 'power grab'.

Am I missing something, or is it just another case of those on the far right complaining that after years of them ruling by fiat, someone to the left of them is changing the system to make it more democratic, which will make it harder for the far right to take over again?

[ZenCrusader]

12:13 PM on 10/17/2011

the number of invalid ballots cast should have answered your question that this is NOT just the far right - it is the average Bolivian citizen who is protesting Morales.

[Richard Pearce banned]

02:58 PM on 10/17/2011

From your reply, which avoids the question of 'how exactly asking the public to select from a list of candidates prepared by a body that used to just announce who got the jobs can be characterized as a 'power grab', I'll guess that my quick bit of research did not overlook some hidden surprise.

But, considering the number of names (114), the number that have to be checked off (56) and a concerted effort to convince the general public that voting was, somehow, going to rob them of power, how much of a 'repudiation' these 'unofficial' results show, well, time will tell.

[Airbare8]

04:52 AM on 10/17/2011

A huge overreach on the part of Morales that has come back to bite him.

Call me crazy, but I refuse to even vote for judicial candidates here in the USA! The judiciary and elections are two things which should never go together