Latin American politics (and Bolivian municipal elections)
12.05.2004The website for PSCI 345 (Latin American Politics) is finally up. Only the "weblog" link doesn't work, since I've not yet set it up.
Today's the Bolivian municipal elections. Should be interesting. So far it looks like the winners will be: Juan del Granado (MSM) in La Paz, José Luis Peredes (PP) in El Alto, Oscar Vargas (MUP) in Santa Cruz, and Gonzalo Terceros (CIU) in Cochabamba.
These four cities account for more than half the national population. Numbers of registered voters are: 634,027 in Santa Cruz; 562,272 in La Paz; 401,551 in El Alto; and 327,583 in Cochabamba.
While none of the above candidates represent the "traditional" parties, Vargas was the president of the Santa Cruz legislative caucus, elected w/in the NFR plurinominal list in 2002. Terceros recently renounced the NFR mayorship of Cochabamba after a recent split w/ the party's leader, Manfred Reyes Villa. "Pepe Lucho" (Peredes) recently left MIR, under whose banner he won the alteño mayorship in 1999. Del Granado is the only real longtime "independent", having co-founded MBL before leaving it found his own party (MSM).
Many "independent" candidates are former (or even current) members of the "traditional" parties. Several UCS & MNR members are campaigning in Santa Cruz (including the popular MNR deputy, Roxana Sandoval); many former NFR members are running in Cochabamba. Meaning: more than likely, some sort of UCS and/or MNR coalition will govern the city of Santa Cruz; some sort of NFR coalition will govern Cochabamba. In LaPaz/ElAlto, where the "traditional" parties are in the worst shape, it'll probably be a free-for-all.
The final results will take several days to compile, primarily because the municipal elections aren't winner-take-all contests. Each municipal government has a council (the number of seats varies by municipality); council seats are given out using proportional representation based on municipal electoral lists. The mayorships of Santa Cruz & Cochabamba, especially, probably won't be settled for some time, as the various parties/fronts who won seats jockey w/ each other to form governing coalitions.
I wish more Bolivian parties had websites. But here's the National Electoral Court's website.
-----
UPDATE: Eduardo (Barrio Flores), who's in from Cochabamba, is blogging up a storm about that city's elections (w/ some notes on other cities).
Posted by Miguel at 06:02 PM
Comments
I'm not in Cochabamba anymore, although I wish was still there.
Definitely parties and the groups need their own basic websites, relatively cheap advertisement that they can control.
MSM: http://www.juansinmiedo.com
Posted by: eduardo at December 5, 2004 10:32 PM