Reapportionment update

10.22.2005

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A lot of activity, but not much new in terms of Bolivia's election. So far, parliament's still deadlocked over seat reapportionment proposals. Santa Cruz & Cochabamba diputados (lower house legislators) insist on receiving more seats; diputados from La Paz, Potosí, and Oruro insist on not losing seats. But there's enough outcry for elections to go ahead regardless, that I think it's safe to say that elections will indeed happen on 4 December.

President Rodriguez proposed a solution that (to me) seems reasonable. Uninominal seats would remain as districted. That is, the half of the legislature elected through single seat districts (SSDs) will remain unchanged. This means there'd be no need to alter candidate lists, redistrict voters, etc.

Instead, the seat changes would happen within the plurinominal candidate lists. That is, the other half of the legislature elected by party electoral lists using a compensatory proportional representation (PR) formula would be altered. The departments that require more seats — based on the 2001 census — would simple gain more plurinominal deputies.

There are, of course, numerous proposals floating around. Including the extremes where the total seat reapportionment follows the 2001 census (the Santa Cruz & Cochabamba demand) vs. where there's no seat reapportionment, using the 1992 census instead (the Potosí, La Paz, Oruro position). A more moderate position would give Santa Cruz two more seats (rather than four) and would mean Potosí & Oruro would each lose one seat, but La Paz would lose none. The proposal is, of course, opposed by Cochabamba's legislative caucus (using the 2001 census the department would receive two more seats).

Rodriguez has also threatened parliament that if the legislature doesn't come to agreement soon, he will personally reapportion seats by decree. After a joint, private meeting w/ the president, the three major candidates — Tuto Quiroga, Evo Morales, and Samuel Doria Medina — issued statements supporting the president's decision, if the legislature was unable to provide a solution. They also urged the legislature to act, and come to a suitable compromise.

Meanwhile, a series of adjustments were made to candidate lists across party lines. I'll sift through those in the next week, and come up w/ a "final" list of candidates to update my Bolivia politics wiki by early November.

Posted by Miguel at 04:28 PM

Comments

I really think this is all a smokescreen for individuals/groups that do not want elections to take place. I was watching the Bolivian news and they cited a very similar thing in the mid 1990s and the redistribution of seats. The La Paz group went on a hunger strike insisting that the Constitution be followed, thus granting them additional seats. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, they don't want to follow the ruling.

Posted by: eduardo at October 22, 2005 05:51 PM

I think there really needs to be elections in December. The politicians in Congress are really without support and increasingly even with less legitimacy. In the last two weeks, the factions from East and West called for demonstrations in support of their positions. The people did not show up. The municipalities are not supporting them either. Crazy!

Posted by: Miguel at October 23, 2005 03:17 PM