Annals Of Presidential Elections, Latin American Edition
/Here in the U.S., our tradition has long been that we accept the results of our elections, and in particular our presidential elections. The machinery of a presidential election is run by the state governments, not the federal government, which means that the incumbent President and his party have very limited ability to manipulate the result. There is little to no doubt about who actually won under the established rules. Losing candidates concede on election night, or maybe, in the case of an extremely close election, a few days later. The losing side becomes a loyal opposition, free to express its disagreement with everything the winner does in office, but never contesting the right of the winner to exercise the powers of the office.
At least that was the way it worked for the first 57 presidential elections. The search for an exception only proves the truth of the proposition. Yes, there were those who called Bush 43 “illegitimate” after the very close result in 2000; but I don’t recall any systematic defiance of his authority by the bureaucracy, let alone constant attempts to find some pretext to initiate impeachment. And yes, there were three prior attempts to impeach a President. But all of those involved much more the question of whether identifiable violations of law rose to the level of “impeachable,” rather than our current situation of a desperate search for something, anything to get rid of the guy whose real sin is that he really did win the election. (Of the previous impeachments, the closest to pretextual was that of Andrew Johnson for violation of the Tenure of Office Act; however, note that Johnson did violate a specific statute, and moreover had not himself been elected President, but had succeeded to the office by the death of Lincoln.)
Anyway, that was then. Now, places like the New York Times and the Washington Post declare to be heroes the bureaucrats who defy any and all directions of the duly-elected President and who search for any grounds they can take to the press or to Congress to undermine the President’s authority and get him removed. In simple terms, elections only count when our side wins.
This rule may be new in the United States, but not in other places. Indeed, our neighbors in Latin America can give us plenty of examples of how things come out under the rule that “elections only count when our side wins.” Two examples are in the process of playing out right now.
Bolivia
I covered the case of Bolivia less than a month ago in a post titled “The Latest Icon Of The ‘Success’ Of Socialism: Bolivia.” The occasion for the post was a big, fawning spread in The Nation on October 2 titled “Bolivia’s Remarkable Socialist Success Story.” The gist of the piece in The Nation was that Bolivia had finally discovered the formula for socialism to succeed, through nationalizing industry and passing out state handout funds to raise up the poor and reduce poverty and inequality:
Since taking office in 2006, [President Evo] Morales, a former coca grower and labor activist, has nationalized key industries and used aggressive social spending to reduce extreme poverty by more than half, build a nation with modern infrastructure, and lower Bolivia’s Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, by a stunning 19 percent. For much of Bolivia’s majority-indigenous population in particular, his tenure marks the first time that they’ve lived above poverty and benefited from their country’s tremendous natural resources. It’s now clear that a redistributionist agenda has not been ruinous to Bolivia’s economy. Far from it: During the Morales era, the economy has grown at twice the rate of the Latin American average. . . .
Somehow never mentioned in The Nation was that the secret (so far) to Morales’s success has been government control of revenues from fossil fuel extraction and drug trafficking, which are then used to fund the largesse. If you are wondering how fossil fuel and drug profits, so evil in capitalist countries, suddenly become OK under the banner of “socialism,” well, so am I. But let’s move on from that to the presidential election.
As background, it appears that the Constitution of Bolivia limits a President to three terms of office. (I’m not claiming to have read the Constitution, which of course is in Spanish, but I’m relying on sources including NPR here.). Morales took office for his third term in 2014. Realizing that his time would shortly be up, he orchestrated a referendum to undo the constitutional term limit. And this is a place where, unlike the U.S., Morales and his people control all the election machinery. The referendum took place in early 2016 — and Morales lost! From The Guardian, February 24, 2016:
[Bolivian] electoral authorities announced on Tuesday night that voters in a referendum had ultimately rejected by a slim margin a constitutional amendment to let [President Evo Morales] run for a further term in 2019. After the announcement people poured into the streets to celebrate in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, where opposition to Morales is strong. Fireworks also sounded in La Paz, where there is weariness of corruption in the governing party. The ballot measure in Sunday’s referendum had been voted down 51% to 49% with 99.5 percent of the ballots counted. . . .
Well, but this is a place where election results only count if our side wins. According to Reuters here, in September 2017 Morales’s political party, the “Movement Toward Socialism” asked Bolivia’s highest court, the Plurinational Constitutional Court, for a declaration that he had the right to run for a fourth term because the clear provision of the Constitution prohibiting same constituted a violation of his “human rights.” You will not be surprised to learn that the Plurinational Constitutional Court is in no sense independent from Morales. In November 2017 the PCC ruled in favor of Morales. From Reuters:
“All people that were limited by the law and the constitution are hereby able to run for office, because it is up to the Bolivian people to decide,” Macario Lahor Cortez, head of the Plurinational Constitutional Court, wrote in the ruling. In the decision, the court cited the American Convention on Human Rights, a multilateral treaty signed by many countries in the Americas.
Deep thinking there, Macario. Which brings us to last week. The election was held on Sunday October 20, with Morales of course running in defiance of the Constitution, opposed by some nine other candidates. Under the rules, Morales needed to beat the next candidate by 10 percentage points to win outright and avoid a runoff against a united opposition. On election night, officials released so-called “quick count” ongoing vote totals for several hours, which appeared to show Morales leading, but with less than the 10-point margin needed to avoid the runoff. According to CBS News here, release of results was then suddenly suspended. When release of results resumed 24 hours later, Morales suddenly had a margin just barely sufficient to declare victory and avoid a runoff. Surprise!
So how have things turned out? From CBS:
The Andean nation has been on a knife-edge since the bitterly disputed vote. Opposition backers have staged rowdy protests since Monday and burned Supreme Electoral Tribunal offices in three cities. The opposition bastion of Santa Cruz has seen two days of a partial strike "in defense of the vote and democracy."
Morales’s new term runs to 2025. By that time he will have been in office for 19 years. By contrast, the Chavez/Maduro regime in Venezuela has been in office since 1998, so 21 years. Maduro has clearly “run out of other people’s money” in Margaret Thatcher’s famous phrase. Morales continues to put out economic statistics showing great success, but over time his chances of avoiding Maduro’s fate are slim. On the other hand, he does appear impervious to getting voted out of office.
Venezuela
If you have been following the situation in Venezuela at all, you know that there is a standoff between two men, both of whom claim to be the legitimate President of Venezuela. One, Nicolas Maduro, has control of the military and other machinery of government, while the other, Juan Guaidó, is the President of the National Assembly and also claims the presidency of the country.
Maduro claims his position through 2025 by reason of an “election” that took place back in January. Diego Zambrano at the Lawfare blog has a good summary of all the defects in the procedures that supposedly led to Maduro’s re-election. Examples:
Banned opposition political parties, candidates, and leaders from running in the election.
Illegally imprisoned opposition leaders before the election.
Coerced and intimidated citizens into voting for the president’s party.
Engaged in verifiable manipulation of vote tallies.
Organized the process through an election authority controlled by members of Maduro’s party rather than those appointed by the National Assembly.
Murdered protesters who exercised their right to assemble peaceably.
Engaged in widespread and illegal use of government funds to finance Maduro’s campaign.
Used state-owned media to promote Maduro’s candidacy.
Disallowed international organizations from observing the vote.
Whew! This guy wasn’t taking any chances. Of course, at this point, he has definitely run out of other people’s money, and is basically operating on fumes.