 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. As we know, the elections in Bolivia are scheduled on Sunday. That's the 18th of October. And now this is a very, very important elections because last year the elections were followed by a coup. Evo Morales, who was elected as the president, was forced to leave the country after a violent, massive right-wing uprising against his government. Following that, Johnny Nanez came to power. The elections have been delayed many times since then. And now they're happening tomorrow. And we have with us Zoe, a contributor to People's Dispatch, who is on the ground in Bolivia, who has been talking to people over there, talking to officials, talking to people of various parties. Thank you, Zoe, so much for joining us. So first of all, my first question would be regarding the something that has been in the news for the past couple of days. This is regarding election observers, you yourself are part of the Codeping team. There have been other teams that have also been coming. There have been reports of a number of obstacles, harassment being faced by many of these observers. So could you just quickly take us to that? Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Prashant. Yeah, it's a bit crazy actually. So with the Supreme Electoral Court, several delegations have been approved to participate in the observation of the elections. So I'm with, for example, the mission from Code Pink. There is a mission that's from the International Progressive. There is a mission that's from Parrasur, so it's parliamentarians from Latin American countries, a lot of different delegations of parliamentarians. And the government of Janine Añez has essentially launched veiled and not so veiled threats against these electoral observers. There's also been attacks on social media by right wing activists very close to the right wing candidate Fernando Camacho. And for example, some members of this delegation were followed and harassed at the airport. Pictures were taken of them post on social media with threats. And then we saw, for example, some of the people who were coming from Spain, their photos that were taken at immigration were released to an media outlet, also with photos of their immigration forms, to say that they were instigators, to say that they were coming to country with a political agenda. And then last night, one of the most worrying episodes happened when three deputies from Argentina, from the ruling party de todos, arrived to participate also in an electoral observation process. They were invited by the parliament. They were stopped at the airport after having passed through security immigration, sorry, in Cochabamba, then they flew in a national flight to La Paz, which is the political capital, and they were stopped. Federico Fagioli, who is a deputy, national deputy in Argentina, he was detained. His documents were taken away. They proceeded to produce a document saying that he couldn't enter the country because he had been accused of crimes against humanity, and a whole list of ridiculous statements, and all with the pretext of first of all blocking this independent observation and also creating a climate of threats of intimidation, of saying foreigners aren't welcome, they're not welcome to interfere in our electoral process, even when all of these people are just coming to do electoral observation, to observe the process, to make sure that it's a transparent process and that all of the democratic processes are respected. And so, this in addition to all of the other things that have been happening for the past couple weeks is really creating a climate of fear, of tension, of intimidation, of hostility. And I think that the fact that it arrives at this level, even with international people who are coming from Spain, from Argentina, from the United States, I think is really indicative of the level of lack of democracy present in this moment in Bolivia. Absolutely right. And in this context, I also wanted to ask you about the situation that you've been observing on the ground. Like we just talked about, this is a very historic election because last year's incidents are still very fresh in the minds of all of us who are watching it from across the world. And there was a lot of accusations thrown about irregularities. Later studies have proved that all these accusations were completely unfounded and that Ivor Morales' victory was completely as per the books. There was nothing irregular about it. So while you've been talking to people across various spectrums, what are the kind of, how do they see the importance of this election and what do they see as what's likely to happen or other issues they're concerned about? So what are some of these things? Yeah, definitely. I think for most Bolivians, these are some of the most important elections that will happen. But what we've heard from a lot of people on the ground, from movements, from the party, is that there's a lot of fear. And the fear is that this time there actually will be fraud committed because these are very unique elections, not only the first elections to take place after a coup d'etat, which happened in November 2019, but also they're taking place in the pandemic. So there's been much less access to be able to make sure that oversight is happening on all of these processes. I think one of the biggest concerns has to do with the rapid transmission, the rapid vote count transmission system, which last year was one of the biggest instigators behind the protests, calling for a second round and then finally calling for the renouncement of Evo Morales because it's a system that rapidly transmit the results, but it's not a final tally. So the only decisive tally of the vote is the final count. But this rapid transmission system is able to install what can be called a public discourse. So once people see that this rapid transmission system is working, they're going to accept the results that are projected there. And so what happened last year is that you see there was sort of a shift and you see Carlos Meza winning some percentage points and then you see it kind of bouncing back to mass. And immediately that was a justification for electoral fraud. And then everything we know that happened occurred. And so I think this time around, people are really concerned because the entire process is being controlled by the Janine Anya's government. There's been no kind of citizen oversight to this. And yeah, I think generally the sense is fear. They recognize the extreme importance of the elections because it could bring a return to democracy in Bolivia, but also the really great risks involved. Absolutely. And so in this context, there's been reports from people who are eligible to vote in other Latin American countries, Bolivians living abroad. And now these votes are also very essential in these elections. And there have been reports and concerns expressed by many of these voters. So could you take us through what's happening there as well? Yeah, so another really key issue is that again, a lot of what's justified, what's the irregularities that are happening in this process is all justified under COVID-19 restrictions. So one of the really concerning things that's been happening is that the voting precincts in Argentina, in Brazil, and in Chile, and then in other countries where there's a large concentration of Bolivian migrants who have voted in past elections is that their access to the vote is being severely restricted. So there have been reports of the precincts being changed and then being closed. People who have been registered to vote in all the past elections having their voter registry invalidated. And because of the COVID-19 restrictions, all of these processes, all these bureaucratic processes are much harder to take forward. You know, as we know, it's very hard as it is to get appointments with these things, but they're not able to kind of, everything is done online. So there's really hard to follow up with. And so there have been a number of complaints from Bolivian migrant communities in these countries that their right to vote is being restricted. I think in Panama, you know, with the justification of COVID-19 restrictions, there is no polling station. In Chile, there was a seriously restricted, if I'm not wrong, it's just in Santiago, which is the capital in Argentina. I think recently they were able to open up the voting station in Mendoza. But it's also necessary to understand that in the exterior outside of Bolivia is where the vote for the mass has been strongest. And so it's not casual and it's not coincidental that their votes are being restricted because the right-wing knows that this is always a strong vote for the movement towards socialism party. So it's seriously concerning, but people are, you know, mobilizing and demanding their right to vote where they are. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Zoe, for speaking to us. We'll be staying in touch with you tomorrow during the elections and in the days that follows as the results come out. Do keep watching us on People's Dispatch where we'll be bringing you the latest news from Bolivia. Thank you for having me present.