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Election updates (FYI)

Technorati tag: Bolivia

I haven't updated my Bolivian politics wiki for the December elections for two simple reasons: One, there's still a very real chance that there won't be elections (though I think this is unlikely). Two, the official deadline for final candidate lists is 4 October (lists are still being adjusted w/ candidates stepping down & being replaced) and the day parties/candidates can officially begin campaigning.

Posted by Miguel at 04:38 PM | Permalink

Lincoln Park Zoo

My latest Chicago trip, and my first to the Lincoln Park Zoo. It was a bit smaller than I'd thought. But I love zoos. I love zoos like nobody's business. I was especially glad to see they had a spectacled bear. Here's a few shots from that day.

Posted by Miguel at 07:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Election up in the air?

Technorati tag: Bolivia

The Bolivian elections is up in the air. Since the Constitutional Tribunal ruled that the 2005 election must use the 2001 census, delegates from the affected departments (those losing seats in the census redistribution) are threatening to prevent the election from taking place at all. In response, delegates from Santa Cruz are preparing for mass mobiliziations to defend the electoral process & constitutional rule of law. The court has, however, agreed to hear a suit filed by the Potosí delegation asking the court to declare the election itself unconstitutional (since these are, after all, early elections).

Posted by Miguel at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Gerrymandering

Technorati tag: Bolivia

The seat redistribution debate — following the constitutional tribunal's decision — continues in Bolivia. So far, there are three positions on the evolving debate:

La Paz, Oruro, and Potosí: Legislators from these three departments demand convocation of a constituent assembly (which also require some sort of election, thus only prolonging the problem) to decide the issue of seat distribution. They've threatened to block elections under the new seat redistribution.

Santa Cruz: The department's brigada parlamentaria proposed a compromise solution to modify articles 87 & 88 of the Electoral Code, giving a minimum of 5 seats to each of the smaller & poorer departments, but using the 2001 census as a guide.

Cochabamba, Chuquisaca, Tarija, Beni, and Pando: These departments' legislative caucuses have no formal position (yet), except that the tribunal's decision should be respected, but w/o disrupting the upcoming elections.

Posted by Miguel at 06:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In the mail

Technorati tag: democracy

Just got a complementary copy sent to my office of the latest issue of Democracy at Large, a publication of IFES (International Foundation for Electoral Systems). If you have a chance (and are interested in academic analysis of democratization movements), you should check it out. IFES is one of the best "constitutional engineering" think tanks.

And, w/ that, I'm off to catch a train for Chicago.

Posted by Miguel at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Blogs de Bolivia

Technorati tag: Bolivia

I've stopped noting all the new Bolivian bloggers. Only a year or so ago there were maybe a half dozen of us. There are now as many as 100 bitacoras (some in Spanish, some in English). Blogs de Bolivia has a running list w/ frequent roundups.

Posted by Miguel at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

BBC got it wrong corrected

Technorati tags: Bolivia BBC

UPDATE: As of about noon (EST) today (26 September), the story has indeed been corrected. Thank you, BBC. (Although I think they should add a note saying that they corrected the story, not just change it w/o that important notice.)
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I've contacted the BBC (about 5 hours ago) regarding a factual error on their story on Bolivia where this paragraph appears (emphasis mine):

Bolivia's constitutional court ruled against an electoral law that said population information from a 2001 census should form the basis for parliamentary elections.

The paragraph says the exact OPPOSITE of what actually happened. Bolivia's constitutional court ruled that the December elections must use the 2001 census as the basis of seat distribution in upcoming parliamentary elections. The elections (thus far) were structured around the 1991 1992 census; legislators from Santa Cruz (which would receive more seats under the 2001 figures) filed a suit w/ the constitutional tribunal.

Because of the context of the story, the BBC makes it seem as if the court decided (for no given reason) to take seats away from regions likely to vote for Evo Morales. The quote about an alleged "conspiracy" against the MAS candidate, then, makes sense. Bias? Or just plain incompetence? I suspect the latter.

I mean, it's not like the international BBC news desk has the resources to read a few online Bolivian newspapers. Right? Here's my report, based on Bolivian newspaper accounts.

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NOTE: Here's the story (in Spanish) at La Razón, El Deber, Los Tiempos, and Correo del Sur.

ADDENDUM: I want to make this perfectly clear. I don't care whether or not the BBC has or hasn't a right or left bias. That is not my point; I'm not complaining about this BBC report because of any bias I may or may not perceive. My complaint is w/ the story getting the basic, central, key fact of the story WRONG. As such, it should be corrected.

CORRECTION: I mistakenly have cited a 1991 Bolivian census, the last census before 2001 was carried out in 1992. I apologize for the mistake.

Posted by Miguel at 06:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

Election up in the air?

Technorati tag: Bolivia

Bolivian elections hit a wrinkle on Friday, after the Constitutional Tribunal (the Bolivian fourth branch of government that serves as the constitutional court) decided in favor of using the 2001 census (as the law dictates in Article 60 of the Political Constitution) to assign lower house seat distribution in the December elections. Of course, because the change (since the 1991 census) significantly alters the number of seats, leaders from the regions & movements likely to lose power are challenging the ruling, even threatening not to hold elections unless the previous seat distribution is maintained.

Posted by Miguel at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Meet Kermit

Back in Kalamazoo after a brief overnight visit back to Saginaw. Drove Kermit (my 1994 GMC Sonoma) back to Kzoo. I gotta give a huge "thanks!" to my dad, who found the little guy & haggled its owner down to an unbelievable price.

Posted by Miguel at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Pork isn't kosher

Technorati tags: porkbusters katrina

I'm a little late jumping on the bandwagon, but there's blogosphere initiative to fund Katrina reconstruction by cutting pork barrel spending. If you're unfamiliar, "pork" is what we call government spending that probably isn't necessary, but attached to bills by legislators who want federal money to end up in their district. It's a legitimized form of public corruption.

Posted by Miguel at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

X does not mark the spot

Belay that last. It didn't dawn on me that the construction at the train & bus station would make a difference. See, I often take the train in to Chicago. So the plan was to take a bus up to Saginaw, pick up my new pickup, and drive back the next day.

Seems the bus station moved from downtown ... to the airport.

I've not owned a car for 10 years now. I suppose I can be patient a few days longer. And I'm not selling out, I'm buying in.

Posted by Miguel at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Odds & Ends

This week's been sprinkled w/ little surprises. Some good. I found a 1990 British five pence coin in a roll of dimes. Some not so good. My paper on Bolivia's electoral system was rejected by Comparative Political Studies — though I was encouraged by the editors to submit it to Electoral Studies (it goes out in the mail tomorrow).

Posted by Miguel at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

7 of 9 prefect races

Technorati tag: Bolivia

The recent pre-election poll published in La Razón also included a prefect candidate poll for 7 of 9 departments. The results were an interesting contrast to the presidential candidate poll.

Posted by Miguel at 06:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

September election poll

Technorati tag: Bolivia

The most recent Bolivian voter poll by Mercado, Opinión y Apoyo, published in Sunday's La Razón, puts Evo Morales (MAS) ahead in Bolivia's election 9 weeks away. But I think these numbers are soft, principally because Bolivian voters tend to break away from front-runners at the last minute. More importantly, the numbers seem heavily weighted by the La Paz sample and don't include Beni or Pando samples.

Posted by Miguel at 10:34 PM | Permalink

Santa Cruz prefect election update

Technorati tag: Bolivia

In mid June there were five candidates for prefect of Santa Cruz, the populous & resource-rich lowland department. Today, after the last of a series of candidates stepped down, the only substantial candidate is Ruben Costas, the leader of the autonomista movement. He's publicly endorsed by a the powerful Comité Pro Santa Cruz & a host of pro-autonomy social movements, as well as endorsements from UN (Doria Medina's party), PODEMOS (Tuto Quiroga's party), MIR, ADN, NFR, and UCS. He now has an almost insurmountable lead (the others are polling dead) over MAS, MIP, A3-MNR, and USTB. Bottom line: Costas looks like a lock-in to win in December.

As leader of the pro-autonomy movement, he mobilized nearly 500,000 cruceños in a march demanding regional autonomy June 2004 & was declared "governor" by popular proclamation in January. Under his leadership, pro-autonomy social movements numerous times locked horns w/ then-president Mesa, (in part) leading to Mesa's renunciation, as well as winning a call for a referendum on regional autonomy & direct election of prefects.

Posted by Miguel at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SciFi Friday

Technorati tag: scifi

Sent out one job application, and have two other cover letters nearly finished. This is exhausting work. But I'm also highly encouraged by a call last night from Matt — he found a full-time teaching job near Detroit, exactly what he wanted. I'm ecstatic for him, optimistic for myself.

Meanwhile, it's SciFi Friday. And I also have the newly released Space: Above And Beyond DVD's I've been waiting for since the show was cancelled a decade ago. Like Firefly, the show was cancelled by FOX only to live on in SciFi fandom. Unlike Firefly, the SciFi network wasn't yet able to turn that into a longer lifespan.

So let me tell you about my three favorite SciFi series of all time — and why I rank them so highly. In chronological order:

Posted by Miguel at 06:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Welcome to the working week

This week's been me zealously putting together a draft cover letter for job applications. As of now, the draft is 2½ pages long. With the extra paragraphs tailored for each school, the cover letter weighs in at a solid 3 pages. Whew.

Posted by Miguel at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Odd thoughts

Sometimes, when I can't quite fall asleep, I end up letting my mind wander. Often, it's just tangential flow of consciousness. Other times, it's some sort of weird "dilemma" I play around w/ to see if it has a solution. Here's one from three nights ago that I'm still kicking around.

Posted by Miguel at 01:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Katrina

Technorati tags: Katrina

I've not yet posted about the hurricane. First I was busy, then I was tired of all the media hype that passes for coverage. But I'm thinking about where to send some donations to — most likely the American Red Cross. I've seen & heard a lot of anger & frustration, but also hope & perseverance. And, as a fanatical optimist who believes man is a heroic being, I'm confident New Orleans & the surrounding affected area will recover, and march on to bigger & better things.

In the meantime, of course, thousands of our fellow citizens need support. Before turning towards the media's favorite "who's to blame" game, I think we need to think about "what do we do now?" So. My challenge: For every criticism of the government, elected officials, or relief agencies you engage in, donate $1 to the relief efforts. It's too easy to complain after the fact; but hurricane victims don't want to hear critical analysis, they want help.

And if you think they're far away. Think again. There are now 147 Katrina survivors nearby, at Fort Custer.

Posted by Miguel at 05:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There and back again

I (essentially) took a two-week vacation from everything. The first bit was extremely hectic — w/ job-hunting at a political science conference — but the rest of it was a whirlwind tour of the mid-Atlantic, visiting family (hers & mine). To be fair, the first bit was pretty relaxing as well.

Here's a small sample of travel pictures (at my Flickr) from the past two weeks.

Posted by Miguel at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Back home

Still recovering from a long cross-country drive to DC, then back through Wilmington (DE), Philadelphia & Gettysburg (PA), Berkeley Springs (WV), Ann Arbor (MI). Whew. But it was a great trip over all — a nice post conference interviews vacation through some lovely country. And apologies to Wilmington for my harsh first impression; she's a lovely town in fall. Pictures & more to come.

Posted by Miguel at 05:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

8 candidates

Technorati tags: Bolivia

Bolivia's presidential candidates were formally announced. More (and my impressions) later.

Posted by Miguel at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wilmington

Out of DC & into Wilmington. The conference went well, and I'm pretty excited after ten interviews & some good reactions. Bottom line: I'm optimistic. Not much else to report, and been barely able to keep up w/ the hurricane updates (conference, family events, on the road). In the meantime, check out my Flickr pictures.

Posted by Miguel at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Prefecture elections?

Technorati tags: Bolivia

I'm in DC interviewing for political science posts, so it's great coincidence that my editorial on prefecture elections ran in Tiempo Politico today. Below is the original (English) version.

Posted by Miguel at 01:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)