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Election predictions

11.06.2005

Technorati tag: Bolivia

Now that the elections are back on track, there'll soon be a new series of public pre-election polls & other coverage in Bolivian newspapers. There's also growing question of whether Evo Morales, presidential candidate for MAS, can win the presidential contest. All I can do is speculate, of course, based on month-old polling data.

Now, I think Evo might very well win the popular vote. But I can't predict a 50% victory, which is what he'd need to win the presidency outright. Right now, Evo seem's to've peeked at about 38%. The boost is due to his appearance at the Argentine Americas trade summit.

But there's negative consequences to his apperance, too. The move won't play well w/ many voters in the eastern lowlands (the "media luna" departments) that seem to prefer liberalized trade policies. And because the appearance was orchestrated by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Evo's opened himself up to charges that he's merely a Chavez puppet (a charge Evo tries to dismiss, often by traveling to Venezuela to "coordinate" the defensive strategy).

So looking at the last nationwide polling data, I tried some very preliminary electoral math. The method was simple: I took the percentage of votes in each department & multiplied it w/ the total number of lower house seats. Since the MMP electoral system is roughly proportional (though w/ a slight tendency to the parties w/ largest vote share). The number of seats were rounded up; this left a large chunk of seats unaccounted for. Another caveat: Since there's no polling data on Beni or Pando, I left those seats unaccounted for. But keep in mind that these will likely give MAS very few seats (perhaps 2-3), but will mostly favor Tuto Quiroga's PODEMOS. That said, here are the basic calculations I came up w/.

MAS would win: La Paz 9, Potosí 3, Oruro 3, Cochabamba 4, Chuquisaca 2, Santa Cruz 5, Tarija 1.

PODEMOS would win: La Paz 8, Potosí 4, Oruro 4, Cochabamba 6, Chuquisaca 4, Santa Cruz 7, Tarija 4.

Doria Medina's UN would win: La Paz 6, Potosí 1, Oruro 2, Cochabamba 3, Chuquisaca 2, Santa Cruz 8, Tarija 2.

That leaves a total of 28 seats unaccounted for (a total of 42 including Beni & Pando). The total seats in the lower house are 130.

The winner? PODEMOS w/ 37 seats over 27 for MAS & 24 for UN.

Of course, the large number of unaccounted-for seats means the election is still anyone's. But PODEMOS only needs another 28 seats (about two thirds of the remainder) to win an outright legislative majority. In contrast, MAS would need to win 38. This is difficult for Evo, since it would force MAS to win all the open seats in the departments listed & still pick up more than half the seats in Beni & Pando (and that's just not likely to happen). And, of course, a few seats here/there will be filled by other parties.

If MAS continues unwilling to negotiate w/ any other party, then Evo needs a majority of the lower house to win the presidency. And a solid majority at that. Because the election of president is made by a joint session of parliament (both the House of Deputies and the Senate). If Tuto wins in 4 departments and comes in second in 4 he'll have almost half the Senate. Evo can't hope for better, so he'll need a wide legislative majority.

On the other hand, if Tuto has a large seat share, it'll be easy for him to close the gap w/ a PODEMOS-UN alliance.

Of course, all of this is up in the air. Who knows what the election will bring, or what new developments will evolve. So take all this w/ a very large grain of salt.

Posted by Miguel at 01:32 PM

Comments

Posted by: MABB at November 6, 2005 04:36 PM

Posted by: eduardo at November 7, 2005 08:49 AM

Posted by: Miguel (MABB) at November 7, 2005 11:55 AM

Posted by: Daniel A. at November 9, 2005 02:59 PM

Posted by: mcentellas at November 9, 2005 05:43 PM