Departamentos’ Autonomy in Bolivia: Towards a Consolidation of a Multilevel Political System

Abstract

The past regional and municipal elections in Bolivia (march 2015) revealed firstly, the uncertainty of the electoral rules and secondly, the relative autonomy in the forces and political systems of each level on the sub national territory organization. This occurred within a strong and expanded predominant national party system, led by the ‘Movimiento al Socialismo’ (MAS). The inconsistencies between the results on the latter subnational elections and the ones in October 2014 seem to break the monolithically electoral behavior expressed in the national level, which used to display an indubitable support to the actual president. Nevertheless, the alternative political choices are weakly articulated and show a reduced capacity to irradiate a multilevel territorial appearance at the Bolivian political geography.