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OAS Mission in Bolivia Continues Observation of the Final Vote Count

  October 22, 2019

The Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Bolivia emphatically condemns all the acts of violence that have taken place in the nine departments of the country, which have forced the interruption of the final departmental vote count in La Paz, Cochabamba, Chuquisaca, Potosí, Oruro y Beni.

The Mission calls on the citizenry and all political and social actors to be calm to allow for the official vote count to be carried out in an agile, transparent and complete manner. Violence has no place in democracy. It is critical that all Bolivians calmly await the declaration of official results by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, so that this process can be completed and the next stage can begin.

The OAS Mission continues its technical deployment in the nine departments of the country to continue closely monitoring the final computation process as it has done to this point.

The OAS observers confirmed that the violence forced the interruption of the computation process in six departments: La Paz, Cochabamba, Chuquisaca, Potosí, Oruro and Beni. In Potosí, Pando and Tarija, the infrastructure of the Departmental Electoral Tribunal was completely burned, as were the facilities of the Civic Registry Service in Potosí and Chuquisaca.

In addition to the material damages an those done to the process, the Mission particularly deplores the attacks on the personnel of the electoral tribunals in the nine departments, as well as those suffered by the security forces.

As observed by the Mission, the departments in which the transmission of votes has been completed are Tarija, Santa Cruz and Pando.

The Mission will continue to observe the final vote count throughout the national territory and will continue to report its findings promptly. In the next few days, it will present a substantive report on the electoral process of the elections of October 20 in Bolivia.

Reference: E-086/19