Party System Institutionalization in Bolivia

President Morales is the founder of a relatively new political party, the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) that has its roots in a social movement among the indigenous peasantry and coca growers. Bolivia has had a multiparty system in which cross-party coalitions have been necessary to govern. This democratic space allowed Morales to organize his followers, establish a legal political party, compete in elections, hold seats in the legislature. MAS has steadily and dramatically built popular support. He was elected to congress in 1997. MAS and Morales won 21% of the vote in the 2002 election, which was good enough for a close second (to Gonzalo Sánchez de Losada’s 22.5%). They won 53.7% of the vote in the 2005, and Morales became the president without presidential election for the first time in its history. (Bolivia’s system is called “parliamentarized presidentialism”, under which congress selects the president when no candidate obtains a majority of the popular vote.)

Unlike Chávez, who came to power with strong personal support, but little initial organizational backing, Morales has both electoral experience and a broad social movement to call upon. (Chávez thus first attempted a military route to power, and then upon being elected six years later, he had almost no party backing.) In Venezuela, Chávez was just getting started politically when he was elected, while the alternative forces that could check him were disintegrating. In Bolivia, by contrast, both the new government and its main opposition have been consolidating their support. Thus, the degree of party system institutionalization is quite different between them, although Morales is often compared to Chavez.

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