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On Sunday, December 3, 2017, Bolivians headed once again to the ballot boxes to elect the members of higher courts. There are four instances to elect members of: the Tribunal Agroambiental (Agro-environment Tribunal), Consejo de la Magistratura (Magistrates Council - regulates and controls the judicial branch), Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (Supreme Court), and the Tribunal Constitucional Plurinacional (Constitutional Court).
This is the second time such elections happen since the 2009 Constitution. The first time, in 2011, the process was qualified as normal. That meant, people went to vote, issued their votes and results were counted and new justices were elected. Yesterday's process was, to a large extent, "normal", with the exception that the number of blank and null votes exceeds 50%.
The reason for that is the decision of the outgoing Constitutional Tribunal that allows Evo Morales to run for an unprecedented fourth presidential term. Mas supporters submitted a petition to basically declare many articles in the 2009 constitution unconstitutional because they violated the political rights (ergo human rights) of anyone who wanted to run for office. The legal bases were the articles in an international piece of legislation that seeks to guarantee these rights. For more on that please read prior posts.
The result of that decision to accept the argument presented by the MAS was that Mr. Morales can (and will) run again for office in 2019. As you know, in presidential systems there is a long-standing belief sufficiently grounded by the founding fathers of the USA that presidents tend to want to perpetuate themselves in office. In these systems, the fact that a president seeks to stay in office more than what is allowed is seen as suspect. There is a very present association with authoritarian regimes, if not dictatorships.
In any case, the elections happened and now the electoral court is busy counting the votes of the people. Preliminary counts, what Bolivians call rapid count, already tell us that the blank and null votes are leading the way. As this video from the latest report tell us. It is from the electoral court, at 81% of all the precincts counted at 9:44 pm.
Source: Results at 80,7% count. Preliminary report from the TSE. https://youtu.be/zjJ7L_Z7Jk8 (December 3, Red Uno, 21:44 Hrs.)![]()
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On Sunday, December 3, 2017, Bolivians headed once again to the ballot boxes to elect the members of higher courts. There are four instances to elect members of: the Tribunal Agroambiental (Agro-environment Tribunal), Consejo de la Magistratura (Magistrates Council - regulates and controls the judicial branch), Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (Supreme Court), and the Tribunal Constitucional Plurinacional (Constitutional Court).
This is the second time such elections happen since the 2009 Constitution. The first time, in 2011, the process was qualified as normal. That meant, people went to vote, issued their votes and results were counted and new justices were elected. Yesterday's process was, to a large extent, "normal", with the exception that the number of blank and null votes exceeds 50%.
The reason for that is the decision of the outgoing Constitutional Tribunal that allows Evo Morales to run for an unprecedented fourth presidential term. Mas supporters submitted a petition to basically declare many articles in the 2009 constitution unconstitutional because they violated the political rights (ergo human rights) of anyone who wanted to run for office. The legal bases were the articles in an international piece of legislation that seeks to guarantee these rights. For more on that please read prior posts.
The result of that decision to accept the argument presented by the MAS was that Mr. Morales can (and will) run again for office in 2019. As you know, in presidential systems there is a long-standing belief sufficiently grounded by the founding fathers of the USA that presidents tend to want to perpetuate themselves in office. In these systems, the fact that a president seeks to stay in office more than what is allowed is seen as suspect. There is a very present association with authoritarian regimes, if not dictatorships.
In any case, the elections happened and now the electoral court is busy counting the votes of the people. Preliminary counts, what Bolivians call rapid count, already tell us that the blank and null votes are leading the way. As this video from the latest report tell us. It is from the electoral court, at 81% of all the precincts counted at 9:44 pm.
Source: Results at 80,7% count. Preliminary report from the TSE. https://youtu.be/zjJ7L_Z7Jk8 (December 3, Red Uno, 21:44 Hrs.)