RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The final report of the Organization of American States (OAS) on the presidential elections in Bolivia conveys “a misleading, biased and incomplete picture,” according to a preliminary assessment by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a “progaressive” US think tank.
According to the CEPR, the OAS report, which claims to have found “deliberate manipulation” and “serious irregularities” in the October 20th elections, contains “serious inaccuracies”.
On closer examination, according to CEPR, the OAS report “contradicts, relativizes and ignores” evidence provided by the OAS itself.
The CEPR stresses that it is not interested in confirming the original election results, nor in “placing one political party or candidate above another”.
Moreover, the study is not only focused on Bolivia but on “the need for independent election observation in the hemisphere and accountability for an organization that, under the leadership of Secretary-General Luis Almagro, has given up any semblance of neutrality”.
The final report, as well as the preliminary report of November 10th, repeated the incorrect assertion that there had been a “drastic” and “inexplicable” change in the counting trend. The CEPR maintains that “the turnaround was both explainable and predictable”, particularly compared to previous elections concerning the same geographical areas.
In fact, the OAS itself now notes that within the count of the last five percent, Morales’ voting share has actually decreased compared to the previous five percent.
The OAS further stressed that “it was not possible to ensure the integrity of data and the reliability of results”. It believes that this was due to a server allegedly connected to the system after the counting of the Fast Electoral System (TREP) was stopped.
However, the OAS subsequently decided not to run tests to check the possible impact of this server on the results. This would have been “simple and obvious for anyone familiar with election monitoring,” the CEPR said. Thus, manipulation would still be an assumption lacking evidence.
Even more worrying is the fact that the final report “conceals or does not provide evidence of potential manipulation of the ballots”. For instance, the OAS had carried out a “verification test which served to check the applicability of the checklists”. However, the OAS did not provide the results of this check at any point in the report.
On 226 out of 4,692 ballots, the OAS claims to have found multiple entries and therefore speaks of “deliberate manipulation”. However, the OAS itself wrote that only one of these cases had been forged. According to the CEPR, the remaining irregularities are also due to the well-known phenomenon of high illiteracy rates in rural areas.
In summary, the OAS has found many irregularities that occur “throughout the hemisphere and around the world”.
By “decontextualizing the evidence provided, concealing results that are certain but have not been published,” the CEPR considers the final report to be “an attempt to mislead the public and justify its own claims of election rigging”.
There are “aspects of the Bolivian electoral system that need to be improved”.
However, the OAS’s final report shows above all that “despite the existence of vulnerabilities and irregularities, there is no clear evidence that the election results have been systematically altered or manipulated”.