The session for the election of the Ombudsman was called for today at 2:30 p.m., but without a political agreement to choose among the six applicants that remain after the resignation of Porfirio Machado. The only possible way out for the opponents is to elect, by two-thirds of the votes, an interim who is not Nadia Cruz and return the selection process to zero.
Everythings negotiation attempts failed. Yesterday morning on the Influential program of EL DEBER Radio, the head of the Citizen Community (CC), Carlos Alarcón, said that an agreement could be reached if it was analyzed together, name by name, and it was guaranteed that no repeat the experience of David Tezanos and Nadia Cruz “who were servile to the ruling party.”
However, within the group led by former President Carlos Mesa there is a sector that opposed any possibility of dialogue with the MAS.
This faction alerted two things. On the one hand, that this could generate a rupture in CC and, second, that Cree, the group led by Governor Luis Fernando Camacho, was going to be left as the only “opposition to MAS.”
Within the sector that supported the dialogue, like some MAS assembly members, saw Evelin Cossío as at least “potable” applicants for which CC parliamentarians voted en bloc on three occasions, but also Luisa Antonia Chipana and Claudia Andrea Calvo.
Yesterday morning, after a high-level analysis, the position was clear: Do not negotiate and ask in this afternoon’s session that everything return to zero. This is the position that Cree has maintained throughout this time. And this afternoon, he will vote blank again. The only possible way out for them is that an interim is chosen by 2/3 to guarantee that Nadia Cruz does not extend in the interim.
Officialism
The MAS, for its part, stated that it will not change its candidate. Andrónico Rodríguez, president of the Senate, maintained that the political instrument will reiterate support for Pedro Callisaya, “the best evaluated” by the Mixed Constitutional Commission, and that, if the required two-thirds are not achieved, they will announce other measures that he preferred not to advance.
“We don’t know what the reason is, but still there are six that are in the race, one of them will be chosen. We have always opted for the best qualified”, he said after learning of the decline of Porfirio Machado, the third highest voter, to make the election viable.
Rodriguez stated that “many versions have been said, that they were not going to make it viable, they cast their vote in favor of one candidate, they say that they are all MAS supporters, but some assembly members of We Believe and the Citizen Community are not understood.
Some media say that the MAS did not achieve two thirds, it is that the two thirds are not for the MAS, it is to elect an Ombudsman, we are not electing a political candidate, it is important that they become aware”, said the authority. But in this way it was ratified that the attempt to generate consensus between official and opposition failed once again.
Porfirio Machado, the candidate who divided the MAS vote, resigned his candidacy yesterday. In the first ballot she received 30 votes, in the second 11; in the last one she barely managed two and placed fourth, behind Luisa Chipana. This fact may guarantee Callizaya more support from the ruling party, but due to the opposition’s approach, unless the MAS manages to divide it, it does not guarantee her election.
