afloweroutofstone:

I’ve spent much of the last several weeks helping out with what might be the most important project I’ve ever worked on: this report, “Observing the Observers: The OAS in the 2019 Bolivian Elections.”

The Organization of American States (OAS) is a multilateral institution for the Western Hemisphere, sort of like a UN for North and South America only. One of its main activities is sending in election observation teams to ensure that elections in member states are conducted fairly. Most of the time they do a good job, but in some cases they make really bad calls that undermine democracies in Latin America (like Haiti in 2010). It’s also worth noting that the US provides the majority of its funding, and that its current Secretary General (just reelected today) is a right-winger whose views are generally in line with US foreign policy interests.

In October 2019, the OAS had a team observing the Bolivian elections, in which left-wing President Evo Morales was running for re-election. Morales, the nation’s first ever indigenous President, was known for his successful anti-poverty policies and opposition to US domination of Latin America, but he was a controversial leader who opponents accused of flirting with authoritarianism. At the time of the election, he was facing widespread protests from the opposition.

During the elections, the OAS declared that there were electoral irregularities. Based on this finding, Morales agreed to respect their findings and re-do the elections. Before that could happen however, a coup took place with the help of the military which overthrew Morales’ democratically-elected government and replaced his leadership with that of Jeanine Áñez, an Evangelical conservative. Human rights have been deteriorating while the new President has gone back on her original statements and now plans to run in the new presidential elections this Spring. Morales fled the country due to threats to his safety, and many former officials of his MAS party faced persecution, jail, or the need to go into hiding for safety. Áñez herself only took control because the first five people in the line of succession fled for their lives, and she took over the role that put her in 5th; she swore herself in without proper quorum from the Bolivian legislature.

Following the coup, the OAS has doubled-down on its findings of electoral fraud in the election, releasing a full-length report defending their claims. We’ve spent months on this 92-page report proving that the OAS is wrong: they have no valid evidence that there was fraud by Evo Morales or his government in the 2019 Bolivian elections. Their final report contains statistical analysis that was flawed (a finding we’ve since had replicated by data scientists at the MIT Election Lab), excluded relevant evidence, made multiple serious allegations without sufficient evidence for them, and indeed have made some claims that are debunked by their own data.

As a result, the democratically-elected leader of Bolivia — and the nation’s first ever indigenous President — was undemocratically overthrown, and a hard right-wing de facto government is now radically shifting Bolivian policy and suppressing their political opposition. If there is evidence he committed fraud, it has not been presented. Whether the upcoming elections under the new government will be free and fair is in serious question, and there is a real danger to the survival of the Bolivian democracy. The OAS continues to falsely promote a narrative of electoral fraud that they have no evidence for.