Election Day in Bolivia 2005: A View from the Chapare and Cochabamba

The Bolivian people have made history. Never have they directly elected their President with more than 50% of the vote; no candidate has even reached 37%. But today, blowing away all polls and projections that placed his support around 35%, Evo Morales Ayma has officially won the Presidential election with over 50% of the popular vote and will head the next government of Bolivia. Scattered accounts of this monumental event are below. Dec.17th, Saturday, mid-day: Evo and the MAS camp were feeling good. We stopped a road side restaurant in between Cochabamba and the Chapare to eat fresh fish with Evo, his communications team, and about 98 Bolivian and foreign press. Evo was gregarious and chummy with the media and OAS (Organization of American States) election observers along for the ride. Then came the rainbows—two of them, miles apart arching far down into the Chapare basin—on the last leg of our descent into the tropical region. I couldn’t help but think of them as harbingers.

Saturday, 8pm: We walked around Eterezma passing out MAS buttons, wallet-sized Evo calendars and plastic bags with Evo’s face on them. The cocaleras in this countryside Chapare town were feeling confident: “We are going to get 50% plus one,” Apolonia repeated to me several times in the last 24 hours. We had sample ballots with us too to explain to several older women—one last time—how to vote.

Dec. 18th, Sunday, 8:30 am: The courtyard smelled like coca. Just after the polls opened in Bolivia, the central area of the Eterezama school house was filled with over 500 people. The lines snaked this way and that, as awaiting voters tried to avoid standing directly in the hot sun. At the ten registration tables along the walls, voting officials signed in each voter and then held two ballot sheets (one for President and Congress, the other for Prefect/Governor) up in the air, for public verification of their authenticity.  Papers in hand, each Chaparenos then entered an unoccupied school room and cast their vote.

A few miles away, in Villa 14 de Septiembre, Evo voted at 8am sharp, the first one in the district. Flanked by cameras and microphones, Evo placed his ballot in the cardboard box, and then zoomed off for a mid-day press conference in La Paz.

Sunday, 11am: It all felt eerily calm, partially because of the ban on transport (unless you arranged for authorization) and on alcohol (prohibition Friday night through Monday). But the tranquility also came from people’s attitudes. In the Chapare, there were no big rallies, no large parades, no last minute push for voter turnout, just people arriving at schoolhouses to fill in paper ballots.  And on election day, that’s all you need.  

Sunday, 5:30pm: Driving back from the Chapare on almost vacant roads, the blue and white painted sides of countryside shacks, and weather-worn MAS flags tied to tree branches were unavoidable reminders of what a young woman, ironically named Eva, had said to me earlier that morning.

“Evo is like us,” she explained. “He knows what it’s like to live in poverty. He knows what it’s like work the land, to harvest crops. He understands our lives. That’s why I am going to vote for him.”  

Sunday 7pm: Back in Cochabamba, we started getting news from the day. There is talk of major fraud, that over 1 million people across the country arrived at the polls and were told that their registration was not confirmed, that they couldn’t vote. But even with this, the MAS numbers were already climbing to 45%, while Tuto hovered around 33%.

I sat outside the MAS Cochabamba headquarters where there were only high spirits. On the street, you could hear the MAS campaign music—traditional Bolivian melodies with lyrics about “companero Evo,” and “viva el movimiento socialismo,” and a voice welcoming people to la fiesta de la democracia (democracy’s party.) The building is steadily filling even though Evo is in his house and wont arrive for another hour or two. MAS flags, and wiphalas (the rainbow checkered indigenous flags) are everywhere.  And every time the TV shows more results, the crowd’s cheers drowns out the music.

Sunday 9pm: Evo is sitting in his living room watching the TV announcers make projections about his future. His takes certain calls—a representative of the Lula government, from Krischner himself, from his campaign heads in other regions of the country—and then goes back to the screen. He tells us (a few press and his close campaign staff) that he’s waiting to go over to his campaign headquarters until they reach above 50%, and that, jokingly, if they don’t reach that mark, “he’s not going.” Around 9:30, he makes his exit, shakes hands, squinting because of the cameras flashing and quickly jumps into his car, a white SUV with a wiphala hanging from the rearview mirror.

Sunday 11pm: There’s fireworks in the sky and people filling the streets, chanting “Evo, Evo, Evo!” Outside the MAS headquarters once again, I am surrounded by glowing faces and could feel the joy all around me. Evo’s victory is sealed and the people on the streets are elated.

Sunday, Midnight: “This day is not about Evo. It’s about the people that voted for him and it’s about what they were voting for,” my brother said to me a few hours ago. He’s right. In their eyes, Evo represents an alternative to a system long dictated by outsiders. “Evo” is hope and change, indigenous self-determinism and people’s sovereignty. Today is about the fact that people made that choice, that the majority of Bolivians want a leader with this message. Perhaps Evo’s proposed policies don’t do justice to these sentiments. Maybe he will have trouble reforming hydrocarbons law or standing up to the US backlash to his coca-decriminalization talk. But his ascendancy to the Presidency represents something unimaginable for the majority poor and indigenous across this country. One of them has arrived. And that’s what today is all about.