Hard-to-define transitions in governance aren't surprising in Latin America. Constitutionalism is weak there because those regions were settled by Spain and Portugal as government endeavors ruled from home. North America was settled by private business ventures that initially governed themselves, with corresondingly more attention paid to getting things down in writing before stepping ashore. At east the Bolivian thing is trendy. Instead of manifestos, flash mobs generated by social media. And it's now ruled by...a strongperson?
1
This is reminiscent of what happened in Egypt. Morsi, leaser of the Muslim Brotherhood was elected President. After about one year there was discontent about his performance and there were demonstrations In Cairo and Alexandria. Rather quickly General Al Sisi arrested Morsi and took command of the country. This was widely considered a coup. Morsi had only been in power a year, there were few signs of abuse of power or attempts to perpetuate his rule, Sisi acted very promptly.
In Bolivia, Morales who had been widely popular, solidified his power and wanted to extend it.Failing to get it in a referendum, he had his Supreme Court decide that he could run forever. He ran again but the stopped the vote count hen came out with Morales the winner. People demonstrated for days on end around the country. Morales ordered law and order to put down the demonstrations and after a while, policemen and army people refused to fight the demonstrators and the chief of the army Told Morales he had to resign to preserve peace in the country.
This was initiated by ordinary people and low level police and military officers, not by a cabal of military brass.
It is difficult to call it a "Coup". That Maduro and a few others in Latin America would want to call so is not totally unexpected, but is surprising that the British Labor Leader, Jeremy Corbyn would join them . The OAS had no problem supporting the Morales resignation. The concern now is what comes next.
4
The most important question is did they actually engage in election tampering. The OAS said yes, Mark Weisbrot is running around to every media outlet that will publish him to call them liars. Supposedly most of the balloting stuff is available online in the native language: we desperately need some independent verifications of the proof of election tampering or lack there of. The faster the better.
2
How can this entire essay be written without reference to Morales’ calling for new elections after the OAS report? This is central to why some refer to this as a coup—Morales agreed to annul the election results and run again. However, the opposition and the military concluded that another election was not good enough and removed him. Fisher even writes that Morales was “free” despite arrest orders for him to be seized. It is true that the ultimate success of any uprising is contingent on the military’s response. However, the removal of Morales despite conceding to the demands of the opposition for a democratic solution indicates to me that calling this a “coup” is more than appropriate.
12
Meanwhile, back at home (a nation founded via a revolution from
one founded centuries ago and an ocean away), how should we define the state of our own union? How close are we to becoming
a country where the law is no longer the law because the truth is no longer the truth and those elected to preserve and protect our constitution have aided and abetted its destruction while conspiring with our most formidable sworn enemies?
We thought and were told that it could never happen here. But is it?
2
A coup d'etat is a coup d'etat and in Bolivia it was an evangelic and far right coup d'etat with suport of Trump. The article is lacunar after all doesn't mention the recent conjuncture of Latin America with the coup d'etat in Brazil against Dilma Roussef. In this case the consequent "democratic" (manipulated by far right) election of Bolsonaro with support of the far right and Trump also. In this conjuncture the situation of Chile with strong social turbulences against the government. Inequality still reveals itself in the Latin America reality. The answer to this inequality must be governments with emphasis on social issues, like in Argentina, or totalitarian regimes as outlined in Bolivia.
7
I certainly hope the US presidential election next November is not close. The US entered "banana republic" territory in 2000 with the Bush-Gore fiasco in Florida that went to the Supreme Court. We recovered enough to avoid disaster, but now, two decades later, with the legitimacy of our partisan Supreme Court in shreds, our hack-prone electronic voting system, our disputed Electoral College, our splintering and widely disbelieved establishment news media, our competing conspiracy theories of Russian "fake news" interference versus a "deep state" coup, our barely credible political parties and our increasingly emotional and uncompromising political mood, a close or disputed electoral result in Nov. 2020 will make what's happening in Bolivia look like a cakewalk. Where are the real leaders and institutions and citizens who will get us through what very likely may be coming?
3
This article does an unusually good job in demolishing a false duality: coup versus uprising. It also shows why it so blurry, the evidence so mixed, as well as the stakes on how it comes down, at least on this issue.
But what if this kind of grayness is actually quite common in many areas of life, but our expectations of seeing dualities gets in the way of seeing underlying realities and perhaps constructing useful hybrids to help solve various problems. Hybrids that might allow the offsetting of each's weaknesses and build on each's strengths.
Ponder whether these terms are truly the opposites conventional wisdom strongly claims them to be: friend vs. enemy (well, now we have frenemy, whose construction must have served a purpose); socialism vs. capitalism; objectivity/rationality/cognitive/quantitative vs. subjectivity/emotionalism/gut/qualitative; love versus hate (another one that has already been merged into love/hate); competition vs. cooperation; truth vs. false (this one can be tricky); from another article in today's Times, abstraction vs. specifics/nuance; from one in yesterday's Times, confident/persuasive vs. learning mode; moderate/centrist vs. progressive/liberal; even liberal vs. conservative; common sense vs. maybe we've never seen this before/tipping point.
If our framings are off (another one, coming at issues expecting and "seeing" one pattern versus with a truly open mind), it may be that much harder to understand and creatively address difficult issues.
2
It looks like a coup to me: The poor and the Indigenous have been effectively disenfranchised. There isn't much dispute that Evo Morales received more votes in the 1st Round of the Election, and he certainly finished amongst the top two Vote getters. There does seem to have been some Monkey Business, on the margins of the victory. The results might have been manipulated, to enhance Morales's margin of victory (to over 10 percentage points over the 2nd Place finisher, so that he could avoid a run-off. The best thing to have done was to have a run-off election, between Morales and the opposition candidate who received the most votes.
In any event, I think that it is prudent to have a run-off election when none of the candidates receive a majority. However, Bolivia needs to adapt Ranked Choice Voting, which would allow for Instant Run-off Elections. Bolivia should get rid of that 10 point margin of victory threshold provision, and simply structure their elections to yield a majority winner.
8
@Outerboro
Surely the appropriate consequences of having been caught cheating at elections are not simply a do-over. Exclusion from a re-run would be a minimum reasonable outcome. Morales's self-importance seemed to make that an unreasonable demand to him, hence he escalated and lost the gamble.
BTW if RCV is good for Bolivia then presumably you support it for all elections elsewhere also (incl. the US) ?
3
How will it be fair, if Morales is a preferable candidate for so many people? Banishing him from running is to de-franchise his supporters.
4
Morales forfeited his right to be President by violating the Constitution that he himself pushed for. He should not have run again. If he had not done so he would have behaved as a statesman (like Mandela) and remain Bolivia's most popular politician of the last 60 years. It is far from obvious that whoever succeeds him will be better but respect for the constitution is the most important task of the President of any country. That goes for the US, now saddled with a President that does not understand the US Constitution and does not care to understand it,
4
I guess he doesn't want to be a most popular President, he wants his work to continue. To decrease an equality, to improve lives of poor people. Mayb
2
@yulia No he doesn't. He has fallen to a typical disease of people in power believing that he is indispensable. He wrote a constitution limiting a President to two terms, He already violated it by serving a 3rd term. A responsible statesman would have groomed a successor.
4
Here's the Times playing its ancient game of muddying the waters (see, for example, the paper's treatment, fifty years ago, of the war in Vietnam) . Truth, according to the Times, is never black or white; it is always some shade of gray. In other words, the state of affairs under discussion is too complicated to permit "thoughtful" persons either to praise it or -- and here's the crux -- to condemn it.
What happened in Bolivia was a right-wing military coup, pure and simple, one conducted no doubt with the assistance of the United States and certainly with the approbation of lapdog regimes such as the government of Canada. Something similar has been tried in Venezuela, with the support of the Times and all of the rest of the MSM, but so far it hasn't come off. Tsk!
18
You forgot to mention the lapdog government of Bolsonaro in Brazil.
6
This was not a coup in the usual sense of a right wing putsch. Yes, the right wanted him out but Morales lost his left. It was a long time in the making. This is why he fell. Read this progressive analysis:
https://towardfreedom.org/front-page-feature/bolivia-the-extreme-right-takes-advantage-of-a-popular-uprising/?fbclid=IwAR3-nNzTg5169EVtJ1zkDL27evWZ80FQzR0c0s7rfi75QbHo5JyCEJvmyo8
Define the popular uprisings, considering that Morales is most popular politician in Bolivia.
2
Can you really see what happened in Egypt a few years ago as anything other than a coup?
A democratically elected president was removed by force. Old style coup, I mean tank and soldier type of coup. No shades of gray here. The current president of Egypt who removed the democratically elected president by force is walking around as if he’s legitimate. And why wouldn’t he when the west is the power that ok’d the coup?
At the end of the day, it’s the west that drive and formulate the narrative.
It’s a coup if the west wants it to be described as a coup even when it’s not.
7
I think The Interpreter (Fisher) is confused. When a democratically elected government is overthrown by force, it clearly is a coup (e.g., Chile in 1973 or Ukraine in 2014; also attempted recently in Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Hong Kong). When a government that was not democratically elected is overthrown by force, it is a revolt (e.g., Russia in 1917 or Cuba in 1959).
My understanding is that significantly more Bolivians voted for Morales than for his opponent. What has happened in Bolivia is a revolt by a violent mob representing a minority of the population, with the military siding with the mob. Not seeing it as a coup is a feat of disingenuous mental gymnastics, it seems to me.
16
@Admiral What is not being addressed is the more important question. Morales violated the allowed terms as per the country's constitution to stay in power, one could argue his presidency as illegitimate. And in the most recent election, the count in his favor was "highly suspect" as declared by external parties. And so, it is not right to call this a coup. And as a Latin American, I must say that it is admirable the way in which the Army acted which will hopefully pave the way for new elections. Those who are calling this a coup are not understanding the point that his presidency was (on two counts) not legitimate, the people were in their right to protest.
3
I don't see anything admirable in action of Army who actually committed the coup. Note, they didn't eat to keep order while Morales was in power but suddenly changed their mind when they are out. I say suspicious at least.
1
The military intervened. It's a coup. (And by the way, Morales had already agreed to new elections.)
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@Cris But if you think he rigged the first election, you don't trust him to run the second one. That's the whole point.
1
Morales rode the back of tiger and had trouble getting down peacefully. Essential feature of Bolivian politics is that of caste conflict between the indigenous and rest of Bolivians. Indigenous have been dispossessed and marginalized for centuries by narrow Eurocentric elite who wrote the rules , controlled the levers of power, and discriminated against Indigenous population ( 2012 National Census, 41% of the Bolivian population aged 15 and over is of indigenous origin). Morales did antagonize the elite by nationalizing the extractive industries ,implementing land reforms and incorporating indigenous population into power structure. He antagonized traditional power centers including Catholic church by making Bolivia secular. He antagonized USA by crticizing and taking political positions internationally affecting the national interests of USA
The essential problem for human race is how to redress centuries of discrimination without violence and include the marginalized into power sharing in democracy.
India may be bad example of caste discrimination but the Institutions and Elite recognized the problem and gave constitutionally guaranteed affirmative action in education and elections after independence in 1947. President of India is a Dalit.
2
there's a fine line between disappearing and jumping out of an airplane...
There is big difference like the dirty Argentinian war were the dissidents were pushed out of planes Death flights (Spanish: vuelos de la muerte) are a form of extrajudicial killing practised by military forces in possession of aircraft: victims are dropped to their death from airplanes or helicopters into oceans, large rivers or even mountains.
The United States has played an important role in facilitating the advance of democracy throughout Latin America in the past twenty or so years. And, here we have yet another reason to lament our current president's attack on our institutions of governance, as well as his sheer incompetence. Will a gutted State Department be in a position to play a role in influencing a liberal, democratic outcome in Bolivia? What about USAID? Can our military continue to play a role. encouraging professional standards, including apoliticism, in Bolivia's military?
This bumbling, haphazard withdrawal of the United States from important arenas on the world stage will have consequences. Already, Russia and China are building influence in Venezuela, which could imaginably lead to a beachhead for them there in the southern rim of the Carribbean Sea, and even threaten the Panama Canal. Russian influence is spreading through the Meiterranean, to fill a vacuum created by our feckless policy in Syria and North Africa.
It should be obvious to any patriotic American that this man has to go. Vote Democratic in 2020- Warren, Biden, whoever. As long as it isn't Trump.
@Fremont
The worst argument against Trump I've ever read. Before this overly excited reader (he appears to be what they call a "liberal hawk") pulls the covers over his head, he should remember that Russia's economy is smaller than Canada's.
3
No matter how you see it, a coup is a coup is a coup.
5
This NYT piece is long; has no content. The intent is to obfuscate a coup in Bolivia.
The OAS lied about the Bolivian presidential election. the Organization of American States' whose prime involvement in Central and South America, has shifted this way and that. It represented a coalition of allied Latin American democracies with some clout, to negotiate as equals with The United States of America.
No more of that. Democracies are undesirable to corporate interests. Now the USA and special interests bully Latin American democracies, by empowering and colluding locally with self entitled, rich, white authoritarian cry- babies, who are paid to allow theft of resources, oil, timber, hydroelectric power sources, lithium, land for beef industry, unsustainable farming of soybeans on land with no topsoil, hence massive deforestation. BTW, corporations don't care if its China.
In 2015 the GOP controlled Senate Foreign relations Committee, with the Brazilian Right, replaced President Dilma Rousseff with a corrupt takeover - why the Amazon forest is being burned right now.
Morales, an indigenous, democratically elected president's removal, is supported by the now corrupt OAS.
Fact : Morales was winning re-election by 7%, and so was forced to step down day before yesterday, or else be eliminated.
Fact: Trump and sympathizers with "white authoritarian control" wanted Morales gone. ( if this doesn't convince you of a coup, you're not paying attention.)
It's a resource grab
10
When the military tells a democratically-elected, leftist president of a South American country to step down, you can bet the rent it's a coup.
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@kevin True, if the president has been democratically elected. In this case, he was fraudulently elected.
3
So, if Army General Mark Milley, Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were to write a letter to Trump urging him to resign and the president complied, would that constitute a coup?
What that be cause for celebration for the majority of Americans who oppose a leader who received two million votes fewer than Clinton?
Would that be a victory for democracy?
Joking aside. It's not at all complicated.
When the generals determine who will not run the country, that's a coup. It's also true when the call the shots about who will run things.
Morales had agreed to hold new elections, but the military which had launched 150 coups since Bolivian independence decided that there would be no new exercise in democracy.
6
If Morales was a Right wing president i'm sure everyone would be celebrating. He reached his term limits and worse enough tried to rig the election in his favor.
Its time to pass the torch, even if I myself don't agree with the opposing party.
3
It is not about party, it is about how many people supported Morales, and how many support his opponent.
2
Unfortunately the Times’ coverage of the events in Bolivia, along with the vast majority of other western outlets, shows just how unwilling American media-outlets are to deviate from the framing and perspective of the foreign policy establishment in the pentagon and the state department. Time and again military coups are labeled as ‘popular uprisings’, and election concerns, addressed by democratically-elected leaders, are labeled widely as ‘frauds’. This has never been about the integrity of Bolivian elections: it’s been, instead, about the opportunity to regime-change in Bolivia. Morales has been a thorn in the side of Washington precisely because he has not towed the line of the American Federal Government. Evidence from external sources, such as the CEPR, was dismissed and flat-out ignored in western reporting, while the heresay of ‘allegations’ and ‘suspicions’ were repeated until they became accepted fact. This is, unfortunately, the real power that American media has: they can rally consensus so easily, so overpoweringly, that one doesn’t even notice that they’re digesting a biased narrative.
26
@Michael Rance You do realize that “CEPR” is a pro-Venezuela think tank, right? The directors are personal friends with some of Venezuela’s highest ranking leaders.
And whether you accept it or not, there was a popular uprising in Bolivia against Morales. You can’t just ignore that millions took to the streets.
That’s the whole point of the article: you shouldn’t try to be shoehorning the facts into a pre-made narrative.
3
Why you didn't mention the disturbances in Hongkong, Syria, Libya and Iraq, which happen also right now? I believe I know, why. Because what you implicitly like doesn't fit your narrative in these unmentioned cases. The culprits are there where you live.
2
The dynamics of the coup (and it was a coup engineered by the US) which forced out Morales is well-stated in this article: Bolivia's Eva Morales forced out by coup https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/12/mora-n12.html
8
Short version: it’s yet another US-backed coup in Latin America against yet another insufficiently servile leftist leader with the gall to keep their country’s natural resources out of the multi-nationals’ greedy and climate-wrecking claws; unless you are a right winger in which case it’s whatever they tell you.
14
@Keef In cucamonga He was in power for over a decade.
Really? This is quite an effort at obfuscating a widely discredited political and military issue in Latin America: that of the traditional government coup engineered by outside (in this instance the United States; who else?) and local reactionary forces aimed at turning back the clock of history and maintaining the social and political status quo. Please try again from a more enlightened and progressive point of view.
14
Nowadays it is always a coup. People in the streets are not enough to cause a government change.
3
Of course it is a coup. Morales was forced out by the military, that's a coup by definition. Using the street demonstrations of a vocal minority as a justification is just lipstick on the pig.
Morales had accepted the OAS finding that there had been voting irregularities, and that a new vote was necessary. The military should have brought back order in the streets (not Chile-style, of course), and guaranteed free and fair elections, overseen by respected international observers. If Morales would have won the new elections he would have continued on, and if he hadn't he would have stepped down.
That's democracy at work.
Now instead, by forcing him out, and not allowing either him or his top deputies to even run in the upcoming elections, under the threat of violence to them and their families, they have disenfranchised 35% or more of the Bolivian electorate.
How is this going to be good for the future of Bolivia? It'll lead to endless recriminations. A sad day for democracy, and a sad day for South America.
27
@Christian The only coup was the one Morales perpetrated against the Bolivian people, when he essentially abolished term limits.
7
Yeah, Evo was in Washington orchestrating the coup.
2
@Mickey Dee The Supreme Court of Bolivia ruled that the law imposing term limits on Morales was unconstitutional, he did not abolish them. If you want to make the argument that Morales had undue influence over the decision fine, but you will have to back that up.
4
Evo Morales ran legitimately for two turns, then packed the judiciary in order to overrule the Bolivian Constitution to run a third time. He also lost a referendum (non-binding) for his third turn, which run and won anyway. He then asked the judiciary to rule that his bar to the fourth presidential turn was an attack on his human rights (please !)
When the voting for the fourth election goes badly against Morales, there is a voting-count news black-out and when the information flow resumes, the count shows a Morales win by 10 full points (no surprise there).
At this point, people go into the streets to protest, Morales followers counter-protest, Morales asks the Army to shoot anti-Morales protesters and reimpose order, and the Army says, we are not getting our hands dirty and be accused of civil-war mongering, we suggest you go into exile.
Revolution or coup (by omission)? Yes to both and good riddance to Morales, he tried to pull a Maduro and thanks to the Bolivian people and (so far) decent Army brass, Bolivia is not Venezuela and Morales could not become a king.
12
@Roddick / Serena ex- fan
Is this from a CIA press release?
17
@Roddick / Serena ex- fan
Very well said, this is precisely the sentiment in Latin America on the issue. Why is it that we are so blind to how our fragile democracies can be manipulated by populist candidates to becomes stealth dictatorships. Morales was executing brilliantly on the Chavez playbook to stay in power. His presidency was not legitimate and the people of Bolivia were in their right to protest. And thus far the army has been an example to the region and the world. I only wish the military in Venezuela had acted in this manner, instead they decided to profit at the cost of the people by staying loyal to Maduro.
3
@Roddick / Serena ex- fan When did he order the Army to shoot protesters? I have never seen a single credible source say that.
The military has cracked down on Morales' supporters, so the idea that they just wanted to keep their hands clean is laughable.
2
Whatever one thinks of Morales, the Bolivian military deposed a legitimately elected president before the end of his term. That’s a coup.
16
@Peter Wrong. He was not legitimately elected.
@Peter Not legitimately elected.
@Peter. Nope, he resigned.
Evo Morales wrote on May 28, 2016, (translated): "Whoever escapes or flees is a confessed criminal, not someone being politically persecuted" (in reference to extradition attempts to bring back Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, another autocrat, but on the right wing)
Morales fled to Mexico.
3
This piece is more nuanced that previous Times coverage on Bolivia, to say nothing of the deeply misguided editorial published today.
While this piece takes pains to highlight some of the complexities of this delicate political situation, I am still left wondering why the Times has yet to address the Center for Economic and Policy Research report which disputes the findings of the Organization of American States conclusion that the Bolivian election was marred by electoral fraud:
http://cepr.net/publications/reports/bolivia-elections-2019-11
The authors of the this report - all economics PhDs - find that the unofficial vote reporting was SCHEDULED to be suspended at ~83% so as not to be confused with OFFICIAL tallies, and Morales' later surge was both overwhelmingly statistically probable and and intuitive outcome, as the late-reporting areas of Bolivia are located in the rural highlands - traditional Movimiento al Socialismo strongholds.
It is astounding to me - both as a NYT reader, and as a Latin American Studies PhD - that the Times' coverage has repeatedly neglected to highlight this report or the strong possibility that Morales' election victory was both democratic and legitimate. Perhaps one may think that 4 terms is too many, or that Bolivia's supreme court was misguided in lifting a ban on term limits. But this views do not bear on the legitimacy of the election itself. After all, FDR managed to win four legitimate elections railing against economic royalists.
41
@David You base your argument around the CEPR report. CEPR, frankly, is not taken seriously by most scholars. They’re closely linked to the Venezuelan government and have been accused of manipulating data in the past. To be quite honest, they are not a remotely objective source, but a highly partisan one.
2
@Joseph Citation needed? If you are going to allege that a source has ties to the Venezuelan government you had better be willing to provide documentation to back up your claim. The bedrock of academic discourse is full attribution and disclosure of evidence, not smearing other academics with preposterous charges of having ties to foreign governments without providing a shred of evidence. Dean Baker and his colleagues are well-respected economists and quantitative analysts. Tying to discredit their work by attacking their reputations, rather than demonstrating, say, how you or other scholars think they manipulate data, is not going to get you taken very seriously.
6
@Joseph Citation needed? If you are going to allege that a source has ties to the Venezuelan government you had better be willing to provide documentation to back up your claim. The bedrock of academic discourse is full attribution and disclosure of evidence, not smearing other academics with preposterous charges of having ties to foreign governments without providing a shred of evidence. Dean Baker and his colleagues are well-respected economists and quantitative analysts. Trying to discredit their work by attacking their reputations, rather than demonstrating, say, how you or other scholars think they manipulate data, is not going to get you taken very seriously. Economist Joseph Stiglitz is on their board. Are you really trying to suggest that work endorsed by Nobel Laureate is not taken seriously by other scholars?
2
Not a coup. What it was was a president, who was constitutionally limited to 2 terms, who, at the end of his THIRD term, after losing and ignoring a referendum he initially promised to obey, manipulated the supreme court to grant him the power to run indefinitely.
The same president then, when he realized he had not sufficiently rigged the election to win with 40% of the vote and a 10% margin, stopped vote tallying. When the results were reported 24 hours later, he had miracously "won" with 40% and a 10% margin.
Chaos erupted of course, and he vowed to stay in power, until he lost the support of the police and army. He then vowed to stay in Bolivia to continue the fight.
He is now in Mexico.
It's a sad end to what started as a great presidency, but ultimately he showed himself to be nothing more than a lying, cheating, narco trafficking coward.
9
Narco trafficking coward? Are you talking about the President of Colombia or the President of Honduras?
3
At what point the elected government loses its legitimacy before completing its term?Legitimacy of the elected legislature which has Morales party majority in Bolivia is not contested. The fact is the resignation of leaders of legislature who are in line for succession had to resign under threat of personal violence and flee the country is a sure evidence of coup. There is no coverage in NY times of deep geopolitical and ,racial, and economic fractures between the whites and Indigenous population in Bolivia .Moroles was riding back of tiger where he could never get down. Coup instigators are in no mood to share power with indigenous population and treat them as equals. NY times has not delved into background of the opposition leaders from provinces who advocated succession prior to this conflict.It also failed to to report a credible news item that copy leaders stormed into abandoned presidential palace "With a Bible in one hand and a national flag in the other, coup leader bowed his head in prayer above the presidential seal, fulfilling his vow to purge his country’s Native heritage from government and “return God to the burned palace.”
“Pachamama will never return to the palace,” he said, referring to the Andean Mother Earth spirit. “Bolivia belongs to Christ.”
Bolivia is purported to have 80% of world lithium supplies. If this is true geopolitical actors are going into the scene. Let the election be conducted under the UN auspices with EU monitors to resolve the crisis.
10
All this is very interesting but what do you do when:
- the constitution says the President can only do two terms, and the President in power has already done them;
- a referendum is organized to ask if he could do another term nonetheless, and the validated result is No;
- the Supreme Court decides nonetheless that not allowing him to participate to the election is an infringement on his Human Rights, and therefore validates his candidacy;
- rule says to win on the first round, he does not need 50% of the votes if the difference with the next candidate is above 10%. On the night of the elections, results issued continuously up to 22:00 show a difference of 7.12% with 83.8% of the votes counted. Then the elections authority decides to stop transmitting more results until the evening of the next day, and the difference reaches 10.11% with 95.6% of the votes counted;
- the President is declared winner of the elections, with no need for a second round.
You can call it what you want, but faced with no remaining alternative you do it.
7