Guide: 2014 Elections in the Americas

If the polls are correct, Evo Morales could avoid a runoff vote.

The third and final poll by Ipsos gives Morales 59 percent of voter intention for the October 12 election. That puts him a full 46 points ahead of his top rival, Samuel Doria Medina of the Democratic Unity party. Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga of the Christian Democratic Party holds the third spot with 8 percent of voter intention. The most recent survey by polling firm Mori also gives Morales 59 percent, followed by Doria Medina at 18 percent and Quiroga at 9 percent.

In order to avoid a second round of voting, Morales needs 50 percent of the vote plus one, or at least 40 percent of votes and at least 10 percent more than the second-place candidate. A runoff would take place on December 7.

A victory for Morales will result in his third consecutive term.

Should he win, Morales would start his third term in a row, even though Bolivia’s Constitution only allows a sitting president to be reelected once, meaning for two consecutive terms. Last year, Bolivia’s Supreme Court decided that since the new Constitution took effect while Morales was in office in 2009, his first term fell outside the rule. This allowed Morales to count his second term as his first. He initially became president in January 2006 and an election victory would mean another five-year term, keeping him in office until January 2020.

The president has high approval ratings and faces a fragmented opposition.

The opposition has the challenge of running against a president whose approval rating ran as high as 73 percent in June, according to Ipsos. Even in Santa Cruz, a region considered an opposition stronghold, Morales’ support reached 68 percent in the survey.

One reason for Morales’ high approval rating is the country’s strong economic growth under his charge. Bolivia’s GDP growth hit 6.8 percent in 2013 and the IMF forecasts it will have the strongest GDP growth in South America this year, at 5.2 percent. Not only that, but Morales’ party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), holds the largest number of seats in the country’s legislature. Morales also faces a divided opposition, given that Doria Medina and Quiroga are fighting over the same bloc of opposition voters, says Bolivian daily La Razón. There are two other minor candidates—former Morales ally Juan del Granado and indigenous leader Fernando Vargas—trailing in the polls and further dividing the vote.

Morales’ top rival is a business leader, prior candidate, plane crash survivor, and former kidnapping victim.

Since 1987 Doria Medina has led Soboce, a Bolivian cement company, and he won the 2012 Latin American Industrialists Association’s award for top industrialist in the region. But he also spent time in public office, serving as the planning minister during the government of President Jaime Paz Zamora (1989-1993). The centrist business leader sought the presidency twice, in 2005 and 2009, placing third both times. In 1995, he was kidnapped for 45 days by the Peruvian guerilla group known as the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. A decade later he survived a plane crash.

The candidate polling third is a former president.

Quiroga served as president from August 2001 to August 2002.  He ascended to that position after Hugo Banzer, for whom he served as vice president, stepped down due to health problems. This isn’t the first time Quiroga has sought to recapture the presidency; he ran and lost against Morales in 2005.

Morales skipped the only presidential debate.

The president opted not to take part in the September 28 debate, nor did Vice President Álvaro García take part in the September 21 debate among vice presidential candidates. A spokesman for the president said Morales did not need to participate because he does so on a daily basis by listening to the Bolivian people, which is the “true debate.”

The entirety of the legislative assembly is up for election.

All 130 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 36 seats in the Senate will be selected on Sunday. In both cases, legislators serve five-year terms. In the lower house, 70 deputies are voted by a plurality vote, 53 by proportional representation, and seven are reserved for indigenous candidates, also elected via a plurality vote. In the Senate, each of Bolivia’s nine departments elects four senators through a proportional voting method. Legislators can be reelected once to serve two consecutive terms.

Polls indicate that Morales’ party could win a two-thirds majority in the assembly.

MAS could snatch up 28 of the 36 seats in the Senate and 83 of 130 seats in the Chamber, reports Bolivian media outlet Página Siete, based on a late August poll by Tal Cual. That would give the party 111 seats in the legislature, meaning a two-thirds majority. MAS could also capture some portion of the seven seats set aside for indigenous candidates. In the run up to the election, Morales called on his supporters to deliver 80 percent of the vote for MAS.

Almost 900,000 more people are registered to vote compared to the last election.

About 6.25 million people are registered to vote on Sunday, including 272,000 of them from abroad who can cast ballots for presidential and vice-presidential candidates. In Bolivia, 5.97 million people are registered, representing 60 percent of the population and an increase of roughly 885,000 over the 2009 election. The largest numbers of voters are in La Paz, Santa Cruz, and Cochabamba, respectively. It is compulsory for eligible voters to participate and Bolivians are given the right to vote at the age of 18. Turnout was high during 2009 elections, with nearly 95 percent of the electorate participating.

Bolivia implemented a new gender quota for the 2014 vote.

A law passed in 2010 and implemented during this election requires candidate lists for legislative posts to include an equal number of men and women. Women currently hold 25 percent of lower house seats and 47 percent of Senate seats.

On top of that, a social movement has sought to decry candidates who are suspected of violence against women. Using the slogan “Machista, fuera de la lista” (“Misogynist, get off the list”), the organizers succeeded in forcing two candidates accused of beating their wives to step down. One of them was a senate candidate for MAS.

Get updates on Brazil's presidential vote, which takes place October 5. Also, explore our recent coverage to get an overview of the election, candidates, polls, and more:

• Learn more about what's been happening on the campaign trail in our election blog.
• Check out our election guide, which includes important dates and facts about the vote.
• View our infographic with a rundown of numbers about the election.

On October 5, Brazilians head to the polls to elect their next president, as well as legislators and governors. As campaigns enter the final weeks, candidates are going beyond the airwaves and harnessing the power of social media.

There’s a reason political hopefuls are turning to these networks: more and more Brazilians are getting online, and many Brazilian web users frequent social media. In 2013, more than 105 million Brazilians—about 52 percent of the country’s population—accessed the internet, according to Ibope. A Social @ Ogilvy survey of 16 countries, including the United States and Brazil, showed that Brazilians spend an average of 13.8 hours a month on social networks—more than any other country. Another reason social media proves useful is that electoral law limits candidates to specific amounts of daily airtime on TV and radio, but social media provides an unlimited platform.

So as presidential candidates battle it out in the polls, they’re also after social media followers. President Dilma Rousseff leads in number of Twitter followers, but challenger Marina Silva has the most Facebook fans. Rousseff used Twitter during her 2010 campaign, but stopped using the network after her election. Her team reactivated her account and started a Facebook page in September 2013, shortly after the country’s social media-fueled protests. Polling third, Senator Aécio Neves leads in number of Instagram followers.

Electoral Monitor, a website that tracks presidential candidates’ social media mentions, shows Silva as the frontrunner this month, with over 335,000 mentions compared to around 296,000 for Rousseff and 207,000 for Neves. The site also looks at candidates’ “social health” by dividing the number of positive mentions by the number of overall mentions. Using this measure, Neves leads with 82 percent, compared to 46 percent for Rousseff and 44 percent for Silva. Plus, this month, popular ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva joined Twitter, largely focusing on campaigning for Rousseff. 

Raquel Recuero, a social media researcher at Brazil’s University of Pelotas, told BBC Brasil that discussions about the elections on social media can carry over into the real world to influence those who may not have access to the internet, as last year’s protests did. Indeed, Facebook and Twitter serve as a forum for voters, who share everything from their preference for candidates to campaign videos.

Facebook is the country’s most popular social network, with roughly 89 million users. Along with a space for voters to share thoughts on the candidates, the website will even become a new space for candidates to debate. On September 16, Facebook Brasil challenged presidential candidates to participate in a livestreamed “Face-to-Face” event allowing users to ask questions in real time. Silva was interviewed on September 17, and Neves will participate on September 23.

Twitter, too, has become a hotspot for discussing the candidates, the presidential debates, and election issues. It’s also being used to hold “tuitaços,” organized mass tweeting events related to political issues. As a result, the network has become a source of controversy. Last week, Silva and Marina exchanged barbs via tweet; earlier this month, Neves took legal action against Twitter, demanding the company provide user information about 66 Twitter accounts allegedly slandering the candidate.

With less than two months to go before Uruguay’s October 26 general election, polls show the ruling Broad Front coalition may not muster the absolute majority needed to avoid a runoff against the opposition National Party in the race for president. If no candidate receives the necessary 50 percent plus one, a second-round vote will be held on November 30.

An Instituto Factum survey conducted between August 29 and September 3 measured voter intention for the Broad Front at 42 percent, a 10-point lead over the National Party, at 32 percent. The National Party—whose presidential candidate, Luis Lacalle Pou, is the son of a former president—saw a slight rise in support with a one-point increase in both July and August. On the other hand, ex-President Tabaré Vázquez leading the Broad Front’s ticket recovered from a one-point drop in August. The Colorado Party, headed by Pedro Bordaberry, stands in third place with 15 percent. The latest CIFRA poll conducted in August put the Broad Front’s support at 41 percent and the National Party’s at 32 percent, a nine-point difference and the narrowest margin during the entire campaign. 

Meanwhile, a September 10 survey from Equipos Mori found slightly lower levels of support for the Broad Front and the National Party, at 40 and 28 percent, respectively, as well as for the Colorado Party, at 11 percent. The pollster measured a higher number of undecided voters than the Factum and CIFRA surveys, and found 11 percent of voters were not sure which candidate to support. 

In 2009, President José Mujica of the Broad Front received 48 percent of the first-round vote before winning in the runoff.Vázquez needs a similar level of first-round support to have a chance in November’s runoff, said CIFRA Director Luis Eduardo Gonzalez in an interview with Uruguay’s El Pais. “If Vázquez is between 44 and 45 percent [in October], he will most likely lose in November, but if he is between 46 and 47 percent, it is more likely he will win,” he added.

Although the Broad Front enjoys a lead, the combined support among opposition parties may mean a close runoff. The National and Colorado Parties constitute Uruguay’s right-leaning “traditional parties,” and votes from the third-place party are expected to go to the National Party in the event of a runoff, rather than the leftist Broad Front. Currently, the combined support for these traditional parties surpasses that of the Broad Front in both the CIFRA and Factum polls.