Presidential Elections

Today is Election Day in Bolivia!  It's pretty exciting - way more involved than election days in the U.S.

For one thing, voting is mandatory here.  Every person over the age of 18 has to vote; otherwise, they aren't allowed to leave the country for the next year and lose the right to vote in the next election.  The headline of the paper today is "6.2 Million Bolivians Elect New Authorities" - they know how many people are going to vote even before it happens.

There are a lot of other rules that take place this weekend.  Alcohol sales have been banned since Friday - I guess the government wants everyone to be in their most sensible state of mind for today.  Also, for all of today, cars are completely banned.  The streets are deserted except for people walking on foot or biking, and most things are closed for the day.  Supposedly, this is to prevent corruption - you can't sneak extra votes into ballot boxes if you don't have a car to do so.

This is the infographic from the paper today, describing the actual voting process.  It seems pretty intense - it involves a "president of the voting table" signing your ballot, and you stamping it with your thumb and signing it.  Not the most anonymous, but maybe it helps cut down on fraud?

There is a bit of controversy surrounding this particular election.  In Bolivia, presidents are limited to 2 terms, and those terms can't be consecutive.  The current president, Evo Morales, has already had two terms.  During this past one, however, the government re-founded the country, writing a new constitution and renaming it (from "República de Bolivia" to "Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia").  Because of this, he's saying he's only been president of this country for one term, and he's running again.  As the first indigenous president in South America, and as someone who's helped the economy and done a lot of good for the poor and indigenous people in Bolivia, he's generally popular and is expected to win by a good margin - although plenty of people (especially the richer, whiter people who are concentrated in the eastern part of the country) have their reservations about him.

I'm not sure how long it takes for the authorities to collect and count all of the votes.  Everything is done on paper, and this is a country where only 20% of the roads are paved, so I imagine it takes awhile to collect and count everything.  I'll keep you guys posted, though!