Luis Arce, former finance minister within the authorities of Evo Morales, celebrated together with his marketing campaign crew in La Paz within the early hours of October 19 as an exit ballot forecast his victory within the nation’s presidential elections. Though the official outcomes won’t be introduced earlier than October 25, all indicators level to Arce’s Motion In direction of Socialism (MAS) profitable the presidential elections within the first spherical.

Arce, one of many key architects of financial coverage through the Morales presidency, succeeded the previous socialist chief – who stays in exile in Argentina – because the chief of the MAS. Though Arce doesn’t come from any of the social actions on the base of the celebration, he’s seen as a frontrunner able to bringing the celebration, and nation extra typically, collectively.

Regardless of some heated discussions round polling stations, election day in Bolivia proceeded and not using a hitch, with many within the nation respiration a collective sigh of aid. Nonetheless, Bolivian democracy nonetheless faces a lot of challenges.

Virtually precisely a 12 months has handed because the 2019 vote, which was marred by accusations that the incumbent Morales had dedicated electoral fraud. After 14 years in energy, he was lastly compelled from workplace by a coup d’état in early November 2019, with state-perpetrated violence after the putsch leaving scores lifeless.

There’s nonetheless a lot we have no idea about these darkish days, whereas most of the points raised by the 2019 political disaster stay unresolved. The energy of liberal democracy stays weak and the nation’s political enviornment cut up between those who imagine Morales and the MAS had been ousted by a coup and those who imagine the 2019 elections had been fraudulent.

COVID-19 has poured gas on the hearth, because the interim authorities of Jeanine Añez persistently used the pandemic as a method to consolidate her personal political venture and delay elections.

Liberal democracy in Bolivia

Bolivia’s liberal democratic establishments don’t match as much as the complicated political actuality at one of the best of instances, however adjustments up to now decade to the physique chargeable for overseeing elections additional eroded public belief in democracy. Morales’s political opponents believed the manager department of presidency had undue affect over Bolivia’s new Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE). These suspicions had been, of their minds, confirmed in 2017 when the TSE accepted Morales’s candidacy for the 2019 elections regardless of limits on constitutional phrases which ought to have precluded him.

Morales was allowed to run for a fourth time period on the grounds of his human rights to democracy, however the value was excessive. His political opponents mounted a sustained assault on the TSE and painted the 2019 elections as fraudulent within the months main up the poll. This was so efficient that by September 2019, 68% of Bolivians polled believed there can be fraud within the upcoming elections.

For its half, the TSE did its finest to lose what credibility it had left. In October 2019, on the evening of the elections, the fast rely system often known as TREP was stopped unexpectedly. The TSE gave no fewer than 4 conflicting explanations, angering protesters already suspecting fraud and resulting in mass violence in cities throughout the nation.

The Organisation of American States then waded into the fray, publicly voicing its concern about electoral fraud in a report that has since acquired substantial criticism. The vp of the TSE, Antonio Costas, then resigned, leaving its popularity in tatters.

The TSE has fared little higher in 2020 below its new president, Salvador Romero. Persistent suspicions of fraud led Romero to cancel the brand new fast rely system, the DIREPRE, a day earlier than the October 18 elections. Till the official rely is in, nothing might be taken without any consideration.

Competing narratives of disaster

The streets are nonetheless one of many principal websites of Bolivian politics. Violence marked the run as much as the 2020 elections, main worldwide observers to name for calm.

Following the occasions of October 2019, the nation polarised round two competing narratives: coup d’état or electoral fraud. These narratives had been staked out within the streets.

On the one hand, fraud was initially denounced in large cabildos (public assemblies) within the weeks previous the 2019 vote and later via the burning of electoral counting homes. Extra not too long ago, right-wing motorbike gangs took to the streets within the cities of Cochabamba and Sucre to defend in opposition to the return of the MAS.

Then again, protests in opposition to the coup in El Alto, a majority indigenous metropolis, and Sacaba, the stronghold of the coca growers’ union and the MAS, had been met with brutal state violence. Human Rights Watch has accused the Añez authorities of wielding the justice system “as a weapon” in opposition to these protesters.

Fortunately, the elections have proceeded peacefully to date. However Bolivia is sort of a powder keg and the stakes stay excessive.

Because the pandemic rages and Latin America stays within the grip of financial decline, Arce’s new administration will face an uphill wrestle . The October 18 vote shouldn’t be the final phrase and the highly effective pursuits behind the toppling of Morales stay within the shadows. Bolivian society continues to be divided and its liberal democracy fragile.

Angus McNelly's analysis is funded by the Financial and Social Analysis Council.