El Deber website published late last night the preliminary, unofficial results of the Bolivian Judicial “elections.”

The green stands for valid votes; gold for white and red for null/void votes in the October 16, 2011 Judicial “elections,” please remember that the official numbers will be given NLT October 29, 2011. The first chart is for the Constitutional Court (labelled in the graph as Pluri-national Constitutional Court ), initial count up to 71.6%; the second for the Environmental Court (labelled as agriculture and environment), initial count up to 76.2%; and the last chart is for the Council of the Magistracy, initial count up to 73.3%. In all three, null/void is the majority.

With regard to an initial count for the Supreme Court, men valid votes are majority in Pando, Oruro and Potosi; the rest of the country the majority went to null/void (only exception in this case in Pando where white votes are a bit larger than null/void. Women votes ares similar to those of men, valid votes are majority in Pando, Potosi and Oruro; null/void votes win in the rest of the country.

Another highlight is La Paz, until dawn yesterday considered a strong hold of this government, now the preference of the Paceno inhabitants went to reject those candidates (both men and women) to the Supreme Court. A very strong signal from La Paz to current government. Chances are that they will also be very supportive of the TIPNIS protest-walk group that will arrive La Paz city this week.

For Supreme Court charts (source IPSOS-ATB) please take a look at the link below.

http://www.eldeber.com.bo/2011/2011-10-16/vernotaahora.php?id=111016203251

If those initial results were to stand and become official, it would signal a strong disapproval from the Bolivian people to current government. In theory, this was supposed to be the first election in this continent where people got to choose on their magistrates; unfortunately only the process per se showed Bolivian people’s democratic initiatives. I hope current government listens to the people and calls for a new open, transparent election. If the government were to ignore the high numbers of null/void with white votes, it would mean a serious and probably death sentence to the little of democracy that Bolivia still has.