Sub-national elections underway in Bolivia
La Paz, March 7 (RHC)-- The Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) seeks to consolidate its hold on power in Bolivia's sub-national elections, following its return last October to the country's leadership.
Bolivia is holdimg subnational elections on Sunday, March 7, in which almost 5,000 governors, assembly members, mayors, councilors and other local authorities will be elected from among some 20,000 nominations registered with the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), which will be the next chapter in the political renewal that took place last October with the presidential and parliamentary elections.
These sub-national elections count on the participation of more than 7.1 million Bolivians called to the polls to elect 4962 authorities, distributed in 583 departmental, 27 regional and 4352 municipal authorities.
However, it is worth mentioning that in some of these departments, such as Pando or Santa Cruz, the people will also elect a vice-governor or deputy governors. Likewise, a total of 336 candidates for the Departmental Assemblies and for the Regional Assemblies, as well as for the Municipal Councils and Mayors' Offices will be included in the ballots.
The variety among the parties that will run in these elections is wide, since not all of them compete at the national level and there is a battery of formations that only have departmental representation. However, the tone that has marked Bolivian politics in recent years remains: a marked polarization between the MAS and the opposition parties, which in turn have not yet managed to join forces under the same grouping.
Representing the opposition against MAS, the former de facto president of Bolivia Jeanine Añez also registered as a candidate for governor for the Amazonian department of Beni, in the Bolivian northeast.
On February 27, former Bolivian president Evo Morales warned about "traitors and opportunists who join the right wing" to participate in the sub-national elections, and called on the people not to surrender to them.
After the triumph of MAS in the last general elections, in October 2020, and its return to the presidency of the Andean country, Sunday's elections will be the definitive test of 'evismo' and the Movement Towards Socialism.
