How Bolivia Ended up With Elections by Presidential Decree

Dear Readers:

It appears that Bolivia's elections are well set for December 18th and the campaigns are in full swing here in Cochabamba. To explain, briefly, how Bolivia finally arrived at an election date set by presidential decree we have asked our Bolivian colleague, Boris Rios, to once again offer an analysis. His article was adapted to English by Democracy Center intern Gretchen Gordon.

Jim Shultz

How Bolivia Ended up With Elections by Presidential Decree

On November 1st, Bolivian President, Eduardo Rodríguez, issued a presidential decree dictating a new distribution of congressional seats and setting a new date of December 18th for national elections. Elections had previously been scheduled for December 4th, but, after being called into question by Bolivia's Constitutional Court and subsequent power struggles within the congress, it appeared for a time that the elections might not take place at all.

For six weeks, Bolivia's congress debated, without solution, the issue of how to redistribute congressional seats based on the most recent national census (in 2001), to assure equity based on regional population. The issue proved unresolveable, however, because the redistribution required that some departments (La Paz, Oruro and Potosí) lose seats, while others (Cochabamba and Santa Cruz) gain representation. Bolivia’s national electoral officials finally announced that the delay in Congress had made it impossible to hold elections on December 4th as scheduled.

Faced with a looming political crisis and national uncertainty, President Rodríguez took matters into his own hands to resolve the distribution question through presidential decree. The decree is essentially a compromise which redistributes four congressional seats: an addition of three for Santa Cruz and one for Cochabamba, and a decrease of two seats for La Paz and one for each of Oruro and Potosí. The decree then set the 18th of December as the new date for both national and local elections.

All of the presidential candidates declared their support for the decree, as did the majority of Bolivia’s congressional delegations, with the exception of Santa Cruz, which maintained its demand of no less than four additional seats.

Legally, the presidential decree must be approved by a majority of the congress in order to become law. Congress reacted by selecting to neither approve nor reject the decree, though the Santa Cruz delegation chose not to attend the session in which the decree was debated.

The current situation is that elections are moving forward for December 18th. However, absent the congress’ explicit approval of the decree, the door remains open for yet another legal challenge to planned elections.