The OAS and opposition’s baseless allegations of electoral fraud ahead of Evo Morales’ probable victory in Bolivia are dangerously destabilising the country.

According to preliminary results, Bolivian President Evo Morales is within one per cent of winning a fourth presidential term in the first round of voting. However, dramatic violence across the country amid accusations of fraud indicates that opposition forces will not easily swallow a victory for Morales and his Movement towards Socialism party (Movimiento al socialismo, MAS).

As of the morning of Wednesday 23 October, Bolivia’s electoral authority released figures which show that Evo Morales had won 46.03 per cent of the vote, compared with 37.35 per cent for his rightwing rival Carlos Mesa of the Citizen Community party (Comunidad Ciudadana).

This put Morales at just under ten points ahead of Mesa, meaning he would face a second-round run-off vote in mid-December against his opposition challengers. In Bolivia, to win outright a candidate must secure at least 50 per cent of the vote, or a ten-point margin over the second-place candidate.

However, with four per cent of votes left to be counted, it is perfectly possible that Morales could scoop the crucial one per cent to avoid a second round. Counting was suspended in two areas due to violent clashes on Monday night.

The accusations of fraud started on Sunday evening when the ‘rapid count’ system known as the Transmission of Preliminary Electoral Results (TREP) ceased counting at 83 per cent of the total vote. The TREP is used by the electoral authority, the Tribunal Supremo Electoral (TSE), to publicise an approximate vote count ahead of the official result. The Vice President of the TSE has since resigned.

The opposition and numerous corporate media journalists were quick to declare foul play and Mesa swiftly called for national mobilisations to protest the figures. This unleashed a wave of violence on Monday evening. Opposition protectors reacted with fury, burning the regional headquarters of the electoral authorities in Tarija and Chuquisaca. In the capital city, La Paz, tear gas filled the streets as protests turned increasingly violent. The opposition-supporting rector of the La Paz University, UMSA, was pictured on social media with blood streaming down his face after a confrontation. Mesa has declared that he will not concede victory.

At a press conference at the Casa Grande del Pueblo on Wednesday, Morales declared ‘a coup d’état is in progress, although I want to tell you that we already knew it before. The right has been prepared with international support for a coup d’état.’

The Organisation of American States (OAS) which has monitored the election, released a statement on Monday condemning the circumstances surrounding the suspension of the TREP. This statement was roundly condemned by Mark Weisbrot, the C0-Director of Washington DC-based think tank the Centre for Economic Policy Reform (CEPR) for lacking evidence and causing political destabilisation.

Questions should be asked as to the timing and motivations behind the OAS statement. The TREP does not represent the official vote count and by implying irregularity without supplying evidence, the OAS statement served as a spurious pretext for the outpouring of violence directed at the electoral authorities. The actions of the OAS here are irresponsible at best, and duplicitous at worst.

The president of the TSE, Maria Eugenia Choque, said the counting was halted to avoid confusion between the preliminary and official results. Moreover, Twitter user @verokamchatka points out some of the technical issues with the TREP system. In 2016, it stopped counting when it reached 85 per cent, for example. The electoral authority had previously stated that the TREP would never include 100 per cent of the projected vote because of the lack of internet and personnel in some rural areas. The point here is that the stalling of the TREP count on Sunday evening cannot be taken as an indication of vote count irregularities.

The opposition was quick to declare fraudulent activity because the preliminary results up until that point suggested that a second round was unavoidable as Morales had not won a 10 per cent lead over Mesa. However, crucially, this was because 10 per cent of the votes had not been counted from rural areas. These areas are a bulwark of support for the MAS and overwhelmingly tend to vote for Morales.

As Hugo Torrez, a representative of government agency the National Coordination for Change (Codelcam), declared in a press conference on Monday, there is a historic disregard for votes from poor rural areas as ‘the oligarchy despises the rural vote’.

On Tuesday, Juan Carlos Huarachi, the head of Bolivia’s trade union federation, the Bolivian Workers Central (Central Obrera Boliviana, COB) stated, ‘we cannot accept that [the opposition] does not recognise the votes of citizens, the rural vote, the indigenous vote, [and is] confusing the population and making it seem that there was fraud, each political party had its delegate in each tribunal, and there were international observers.’

Nevertheless, these accusations of fraud will no doubt linger and add fuel to the opposition’s cries of ‘dictatorship’. Additionally, the tumult of the elections results indicates that the next few years will not be easy for Morales. An emboldened opposition and a reduced majority in the national Legislature means Morales has a diminished mandate and will encounter difficulties in pushing forward his legislative agenda.

Deeper questions will also need to be asked about the future of Morales’ support. As Carwil Bjork-James points out, electoral data shows that in the MAS heartland of the altiplano (the highlands), votes for the MAS were significantly less than in previous elections. The tight presidential race means it is imperative that the MAS now focuses on rebuilding support among its core base.

Yet the elections also reveal an uncomfortable truth for the opposition. After 14 years in power, Morales continues to enjoy the support of most Bolivians because the MAS’ programme of wealth redistribution, socially-oriented economic development and indigenous emancipation have reaped immense benefits for ordinary Bolivian people. The opposition should realise they will need more than cries of dictatorship and greenwashing tactics to appeal to the electoral masses.

As such, Morales’ re-election should serve to energise the Left across Latin America and, along with recent mobilisations in Chile and the prospect of a left government in Argentina, can be taken as a sign that the Latin American Left is on the offensive once more.