Canela Crespo, a Bolivian member of the Casa Tomada, a left-wing media collective, shares her reasoning for casting a null vote in Bolivia’s 2025 presidential election in which the most popular voting bloc was excluded from the ballot with the proscription of would-be candidate Evo Morales. The post was part of a series of Facebook posts, linked together by a hashtag, aimed at having a broader political discussion on social media. The following is a translation of Canela’s post.
Together with several comrades, we organized a series of Facebook posts explaining our reasons for casting a null vote or voting for Alianza Popular (Andrónico). We are doing this because we are convinced that this discussion is more political and profound than simply electoral, but also because as soon as the elections are over, we will once again find ourselves on the same side, sharing both enemies and adversaries. You can read the arguments of our other colleagues here: #VotoIzquierdaBolivia
NULL VOTE
I admit without guilt that the decision to cast a null vote was not as easy as I would have liked. Several times there was resistance to the idea of an ideological null vote linked to Trotskyism, but above all to the voices of colleagues with whom we have walked this path for so many years and who decided to vote for Andrónico. Their reasons are valid, although insufficient. What is excessive is to blame those of us who decided to nullify our vote, whether they be the Ponchos Rojos, the migrant comrades who opened their campaign offices this weekend in Villa Celina in Buenos Aires, Evo himself, or whoever else, for “opening the doors to fascism.” The minimum we must agree on is that it was others who did so, but I will not dwell on them.
Voting null goes through several stages; the first is that our candidate is not on the ballot and their exclusion means that although the right to vote exists, part of the population has been denied their right to choose. We have reached this point due to the degradation of a democratic system that has always worked against us. Now, are you asking me to legitimize this system once again? Yes, I am willing if it is worthwhile. But what for? “Democratic left because how can it be radical left,” “open up to the market,” “free up exports”… Should I turn a blind eye and take it as a campaign tactic? Yes, but then who are the ones who are going to defend “the achievements” in the ALP? Really, how nice that such-and-such and so-and-so are candidates, but what a pity that they are substitutes and that they are not all in the safety zone. So, are you telling me that my institutional guarantee to defend the Plurinational State is the mining cooperatives and others supposedly linked to drug trafficking and the Loritas? Maybe they are just rumors, but I don’t know because I don’t know them. So I insist, is that the price of being “anti-fascist” from an institutional standpoint?
On the other hand, I must say that I also do not believe those comrades who say that by annulling the election we will generate enough social resistance to delegitimize the incoming government and thus bring it down. The right wing that is coming to power has the support of a section of the population that wants to change the ideological course and move away from the Plurinational State. The experience of Milei’s government in Argentina shows that they are not afraid to exercise power and twist democracy to raffle everything off. So, where do we stand up to this onslaught? Organizing resistance is also a process, but perhaps we should start by accepting defeat early on by voting null instead of clinging to false hope in the ALP, which will also lead to defeat sooner or later. It is not appealing to sell defeat, I know, but have we not learned from Luis Arce that the “lesser evil” is depoliticizing and destructive? It seems crude and easy to write this, and it is because it does not match the cruelty of what we are going to experience. Therefore, again, it is not a sufficient argument.
What is sufficient is that in recent years, whenever I have had such doubts, it has helped me to make organic farming my guide, however abstract that may seem. And there I don’t find as many nuances as in the bougie lefties (where I also come from and take responsibility for). I want to be consistent with what I have been repeating for years and what has kept me on this side; that is why I am abstaining on Sunday.
Canela Crespo is a Bolivian member of the left-wing media collective Casa Tomada.
