Bolivia 66 PARTLY FREE /100
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FREEDOM IN THE WORLD 2021 Bolivia 66 PARTLY FREE /100 Political Rights 27 /40 Civil Liberties 39 /60 LAST YEAR'S SCORE & STATUS 63 /100 Partly Free Global freedom statuses are calculated on a weighted scale. See the methodology. Overview Bolivia is a democracy where credible elections have been held regularly. While mass protests and violence erupted after the disputed 2019 elections, new general elections held in 2020 were credible and fair, and stakeholders accepted the results. Child labor and violence against women are persistent problems, independent and investigative journalists face harassment, and the judiciary is politicized and hampered by corruption. Key Developments in 2020 • Repeat general elections held in October were competitive and credible, and polling took place peacefully. The Movement for Socialism (MAS) won a majority in the legislature and its candidate, Luis Arce, won the presidency with 55 percent of the vote. The elections had been delayed twice due to the COVID-19 pandemic; over 158,000 people tested positive for the coronavirus during the year, according to data the government provided to the World Health Organization (WHO). • In September, the interim government charged former president Evo Morales with terrorism, after having already prosecuted hundreds of individuals associated with his administration. The next month, the MAS-dominated legislature approved the indictment of 11 ministers from the interim government, and recommended interim president Áñez be prosecuted for her alleged role in encouraging violence at protests in 2019. Rights groups and others expressed concern that the prosecutions were a continuation of Bolivian authorities’ long- problematic use of the justice system to persecute political opponents. • In July, the Second Constitutional Chamber of the La Paz Department Tribunal overturned a decision of the civil registry office that had denied a same-sex couple registration of their civil union. The couple’s union was officially approved in December. • In May, Health Minister Marcelo Navajas was arrested for corruption related to the purchase of ventilators to aid people suffering from severe COVID-19 symptoms. He allegedly authorized payments that totaled approximately $4.7 million, over $27,000 for each unit, which was more than double what was stipulated in the contract. Political Rights A. Electoral Process A1 0-4 pts Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4 Bolivia’s president is both chief of state and head of government, and is directly elected to a five-year term. The presidential election in October 2020 took place after the results of the 2019 election was annulled. Early results of the October 2019 presidential election suggested that a runoff between incumbent Evo Morales of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) and the main opposition candidate, former president Carlos Mesa of the Comunidad Ciudadana (Citizen Community) party, was likely. Soon after, election officials released an updated vote count showing Morales with an outright victory, prompting mass demonstrations. An Organization of American States (OAS) electoral observation mission criticized the tally that showed Morales with an outright victory, saying it contradicted independent counts and that a runoff round should go forward—though the credibility of this criticism has since been disputed by some independent analysts. Morales maintained that his victory was legitimate, but also invited the OAS to audit the election, and it sent a delegation of experts to do so. As protests, counterprotests, and accompanying violence intensified in the weeks following the 2019 poll, Morales, vice president Álvaro García Linera, and the heads of the Senate and the lower chamber resigned in November, after Morales lost the support of the military and police forces. Days later, Jeanine Áñez Chavez, a senior senator and the highest-ranking official in the line of succession who had not yet resigned, was approved by the Constitutional Court to assume the presidency on an interim basis. Áñez indicated that she would only serve until a new election could be held, though in January 2020, she announced her candidacy for president in the next election. She eventually withdrew from the race in September in order to unify the MAS-opposition. An agreement between the interim government and the parliament, mediated by the United Nations, the European Union (EU), and the Catholic Church, established a new election date and a new Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), whose actions were widely considered independent and free from undue political influence. The election was supposed to be held in May 2020; however it was postponed twice due to the COVID- 19 pandemic, first to September, and then to October. In August, MAS supporters organized roadblocks for two weeks to protest the second delay of the election. The results of the October 2020 poll showed a clear victory for MAS candidate Luis Arce, who won over 55 percent of the vote, precluding the need for a runoff. Former president Mesa won 28 percent of the vote. Voter turnout was recorded at 84 percent. Multiple independent observer missions, including one from the OAS, deemed the poll credible and fair, and competing parties and civil society stakeholders accepted the results. Score Change: The score improved from 3 to 4 because the presidential election was organized and administered impartially, and its results were recognized by all competing parties and the international community. A2 0-4 pts Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 4 / 4 The Plurinational Legislative Assembly (ALP) consists of a 130-member Chamber of Deputies and a 36-member Senate. Legislative terms are five years. Due to allegations of irregularities in the 2019 general elections, the results of the vote for legislative representatives were considered invalid, and the ALP passed a law in November 2019 calling for new legislative elections alongside the October 2020 presidential election. In October, the MAS won 75 of the 130 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 21 seats in the Senate. The Citizen Community party secured 39 seats in the lower house and 11 seats in the upper house. The Creemos party won 16 and 4 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, respectively. A3 0-4 pts Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies? 2 / 4 The final report of the OAS on the 2019 elections claimed that the elections’ overall results were not verifiable, due to “willful manipulation” abetted by a biased TSE. In particular, the report excoriated TSE members for allowing electronic voting results to be diverted to shadowy external servers, “destroying all trust in the electoral process” and “making data manipulation and tally sheet forgery possible.” However, in 2020 the methodology and credibility of the OAS report was disputed by the Washington Post, New York Times, and other independent analysts. After Morales’s resignation in November 2019, the parliament agreed on a transparent formula to reconstitute an independent TSE in December. In the 2020 elections, the TSE’s actions were widely considered independent and free from undue political influence. Though the day of the vote was postponed twice due to the coronavirus pandemic, the body nevertheless administered a safe vote with high turnout, successfully implementing necessary public health measures such as social distancing and separate timeslots for voting. For years, Bolivian politics were characterized by MAS efforts to abolish presidential term limits. In 2017, MAS lawmakers overturned the articles in the constitution setting presidential term limits by consulting a constitutional tribunal the lawmakers themselves had appointed, despite voters rejecting this measure by referendum in 2016. Score Change: The score improved from 1 to 2 because the newly appointed Supreme Electoral Tribunal provided more independent and transparent oversight of the presidential election, despite a number of weaknesses in the legal framework. B. Political Pluralism and Participation B1 0-4 pts Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system free of undue obstacles to the rise and fall of these competing parties or 3 / 4 groupings? Citizens have the right to organize political parties. MAS has dominated politics since Morales’s election to the presidency in 2005, drawing support from social movements, trade unions, and civil society actors. Morales’s maneuvers to achieve a reelection bid were a core issue in the rancorous 2019 campaign period. The most prominent opposition party, Citizen Community, attracted individuals who opposed his persistent efforts to extend his term. Opposition leaders have criticized the 2018 Political Organizations Law, which contains a provision requiring intraparty primaries. In the 2020 election, a new political party called Creemos emerged, headed by the regional leader from Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho, who organized a wave of protests that led to Morales’s resignation. Creemos is the leading party in Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s richest region, and received 16 percent of the vote in the presidential election. B2 0-4 pts Is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections? 2 / 4 There are no formal