BOLIVIA: FINAL PRE-ELECTION UPDATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L LA PAZ 001585 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 2019/12/02 TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM PHUM PINR BL SUBJECT: BOLIVIA: FINAL PRE-ELECTION UPDATE REF: 09 LA PAZ 1425; 09 LA PAZ 1577 DERIVED FROM: DSCG 05-1 B, D ¶1. (C) Summary: With days remaining before the December 6 presidential and legislative elections, polls report President Morales and his ruling Movement Toward Socialism party (MAS) have widened their lead, with an outside chance at reaching an overall two-thirds majority in the Plurinational Assembly (Congress). The opposition remains fractured, with the two leading candidates still calling on each other to leave the race. Current Senate President Oscar Ortiz faces an uphill battle to retain his Senate seat, and indigenous opposition leader Rene Joaquino's Alianza Social party now looks unlikely to win even one Senate seat. Despite assurances from Reyes Villa that his campaign's private polling points to a much tighter race, the MAS appears to be surging toward the finish line. End summary. MAS Nears Two-Thirds Control ¶2. (C) In a public poll released on November 30, polling firm Ipsos Apoyo simulated a national-level secret vote using persons from the new electoral register. The results showed President Morales' support had risen to 55 percent, while all three of his main challengers - Manfred Reyes Villa, Samuel Doria Medina, and Rene Joaquino - saw their support drop. After accounting for null votes and blank ballots, the Ipsos poll projects that Morales will win with 64.7 percent of the vote, with Reyes Villa second at 21.2 percent, and Doria Medina third with 11.8 percent. The head of Ipsos polling, Luis Garay, said he found their polling had been historically accurate in the cities and peri-urban areas but that it tended to slightly underestimate the MAS' support in rural areas. Garay said Ipsos had taken pains to address this discrepancy, but common wisdom still holds that MAS support is somewhat greater than national-level polls indicate. ¶3. (SBU) Using the Ipsos "valid voter" data for the nine departments (i.e. distributing currently undecided voters and null votes to reach an estimate of election-day results) and apportioning seats via the D'Hondt method, the MAS would win 25 out of 36 Senate seats, giving it the coveted two-thirds Senate majority. Earlier polls had awarded the MAS 22 or 23 seats (Reftel A),but MAS support appears to have grown substantially. Ipsos says the MAS is on track to win all four seats in La Paz, Oruro, and Potosi (where former Potosi city Mayor Joaquino's Alianza Social party was previously projected to take one seat); three seats in Cochabamba (where Reyes Villa was both mayor and governor) and Chuquisaca; and two seats in supposed opposition strongholds of Santa Cruz, Tarija, and Pando. The MAS could take one or perhaps two seats in Beni Department. ¶4. (SBU) According to the Ipsos poll, current Senate President and Doria Medina ally Oscar Ortiz may not retain his Senate seat in Santa Cruz. With Reyes Villa polling at over 40 percent and Morales a strong second at 38 percent, Doria Medina's 18.5 percent puts Ortiz in fifth place, albeit barely. In Potosi, previous polls had awarded the final Senate seat to Rene Joaquino's Alianza Social party, but Ipsos data pegs Morales' support at over 78 percent in the department. Joaquino's 14.3 percent is almost five percentage points short of securing the final seat. ¶5. (SBU) The MAS appears positioned to make a run at two-thirds control of the Plurinational Assembly's lower house as well. Although the 130 seats in the lower house include 70 "uninominal" or direct-vote deputy positions (Reftel A) and voters could theoretically "cross vote" (i.e. vote for different parties for president and deputy),the MAS has campaigned hard against the practice. In 2005, Morales' victory margin of 53.7 percent was closely reflected in the lower house's composition. If this pattern were to hold, MAS would take 64 percent of the 123 uninominal and plurinominal seats as well as all seven of the special indigenous seats, giving it almost exactly two-thirds of the lower house. On December 1, local news channel ATB projected similar results, saying the MAS would win 24 Senate seats and would take 70 percent of the lower house, for an overall two-thirds majority. Opposition Fractured, No Signs of Unity ¶6. (C) Leading opposition candidates Manfred Reyes Villa and Samuel Doria Medina show no signs of uniting, even in the face of a potentially dominant MAS victory. Both continue to call on the other to resign from the race, but both appear determined to finish. Doria Medina's lead advisor Jaime Navarro told us that Doria Medina sees his Unidad Nacional party as the only place for those in the political center and that Doria Medina was trying to rejuvenate the opposition over the longer term. Navarro harshly criticized those who would simply vote "against Evo," which he believes includes the majority of Reyes Villa's supporters. Reyes Villa advisor and opposition Senator Tito Hoz de Vila countered that Doria Medina has always had five to ten percent support but no more, and will "never be the future of the opposition." Hoz de Vila said Reyes Villa's campaign was appealing directly to the voters to consider the future of Bolivia and switch their vote from Doria Medina to Reyes Villa "as the only person who can challenge Morales." Other Polls ¶7. (U) Several other polls released in late November echo the Ipsos Apoyo findings. Both Track and Equipos Mori show Morales leading with 52 percent, while Captura Consulting places Morales at 59 percent. These polls did not project a final vote percentage (i.e. after accounting for undecided voters, null votes and blank ballots). Equipos Mori awarded the MAS 21 Senate seats and said six seats were closely contested. ¶8. (C) Reyes Villa's and Doria Medina's campaign have projected very different results. Without revealing specifics, Reyes Villa's campaign has promised to achieve a second round of voting (indicating Morales would score less than 50 percent of the vote and Reyes Villa would be within ten percent of Morales' total). Jaime Navarro said Doria Medina is polling at over 22 percent in La Paz and over 17 percent in El Alto and said such figures "were symbolic of the start of a new era." (The Ipsos poll estimates Doria Medina's total support in La Paz Department to be 6.7 percent.) Fraud Accusations ¶9. (SBU) The opposition has alleged that the GOB is engaging in several forms of fraud, both by inflating the voter rolls and coercing rural voters to vote for the MAS. According to local media, Reyes Villa's campaign claims to have "proof" that each of the 174 registration stations used to construct the biometric register was "pre-loaded" with 3000 false names, or 522,000 fake voters in total. Similarly, when the National Electoral Court announced it had identified over 400,000 voters in the electoral register who did not appear to have a corresponding birth certificate in the civil registry (Reftel B),the opposition seized on the announcement as proof that the GOB had fraudulently inflated the electoral register to increase support for the MAS. (Note: The National Electoral Court announced on December 1 that it would allow all of these "conditional" voters to participate in the elections. End note.) Last, there has long been concern that traditional practices in rural areas of communities voting en masse for one candidate after reaching a collective consensus had been distorted through payments or threats into guaranteed votes for the MAS. ¶10. (C) Putting aside whether each of the opposition's accusations of fraud is legitimate, it is true that the electoral playing field is not equal. In addition to potential instances of fraud, the press and our contacts agree that the GOB is massively outspending the opposition. Still, reporters, election observers, and even opposition members tell us such incidents are not key factors in determining the election's results. President Morales and the MAS enjoy broad, genuine support rooted in indigenous identity politics, a solid (by Bolivian standards) economy, and the widespread perception that they represent the interests of the lower classes. Comment ¶11. (C) Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera has stated publicly that the MAS believes it will win 23 Senate seats and is seeking its 24th or "golden Senator." Such statements could indicate that the MAS' private polling is not as bullish as the Ipsos Apoyo findings and that two-thirds control is still out of the MAS' reach. Still, all polls indicate the MAS is finishing with a flourish, and some undecided voters may choose to vote for the party they believe will win. Much less likely is that all the polls are off by fifteen to twenty percentage points and that Reyes Villa will be able to force a second round of voting. We will send in information updates on Election Day, December 6. Creamer