MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolivian December election is focused on control of the Senate

Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first elected indigenous president

Bolivian president Evo Morales continues to lead comfortably public opinion polls with only three weeks for the presidential election scheduled for December 6. Five million Bolivians are registered to vote.

According to a Mori poll, Morales has a 52% vote intention followed by Manfred Reyes Villa from Convergencia Nacional (a collection of conservative groups) with 18%. Businessman Samuel Doria Medina is third with 9% and former Potosi mayor Rene Joaquino, 3%.

A previous poll in early November from IPSOS Opinion, Ayoyo y Mercado contracted by television channel ATB, also had Morales leading with 52%, followed by Reyes Villa, 21%, Doria Medina, 13% and Joaquino, 3%.

However the election is not about the presidency since Morales is a clear favourite but rather the Bolivian Senate where the opposition is desperately trying to impede that the MAS group (Movement to Socialism) from Morales does not obtain a two thirds majority. With such a majority he could have legislation comfortably approved with no political obstacles.

The Mori poll anticipates 21 of the 36 Senate benches to MAS, with the opposition holding on to nine and six undecided. Morales needs 24 Senators and according to its own opinion polls it already has 22 seats and only needs two more to ensure the much coveted majority.

Apparently Morales has four seats from La Paz, Oruro and Potosi; three in Cochabamba, two in Tarija and Chuquisaca and one in Santa Cruz, Beni and Pando.

“It’s possible MAS could have a victory which tastes to defeat, because results so far do not ensure the two thirds of the Plurinational legislative Assembly and Morales would then have to negotiate with the opposition to have bills approved”, said political analysts Carlos Cordero from La Paz daily “El Deber”.

Morales election team has decided to reinforce all efforts in the east of the country to ensure the needed seats for the two thirds majority.

With this purpose some or the highest ranking MAS political representatives are campaigning in the Amazon province of Pando, headed by cabinet chief Juan Ramon Quintana and Esther Morales, the leader’s sister that on occasion acts as First Lady for Bolivia’s first indigenous elected president.

Pando so far is loyal to opposition candidate Reyes Villa. His vice-presidential hopeful Leopoldo Fernandez is a native from the province and as former governor has been jailed in La Paz for the last fourteen months, sentenced as the mastermind of the killing of 13 peasants in September 2008 during massive protests involving a still controversial constitutional reform. .