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