Bolivia's Attorney General elected with bought votes, former deputy alleges
Roger Mariaca Montenegro was elected attorney general in October 2024 with 115 votes, but a former deputy alleges payments to legislators and pressure to withdraw a constitutional challenge.
How Mariaca's election as Bolivia's attorney general was engineered
On 21 October 2024, the Plurinational Legislative Assembly elected Roger Mariaca Montenegro as attorney general of the State with 115 of 161 possible votes, comfortably exceeding the two-thirds required. According to El Deber, that figure does not reflect the complete story behind the process.
Lawyer and former deputy Luciana Campero Chávez argues that the election was flawed from its inception. On 9 October 2024, Campero filed an abstract constitutional challenge before the Plurinational Constitutional Court against Law 1597, of 23 August that year, a convocation ordinance which, in her view, violated multiple articles of the Constitution. "Had it proceeded, I would have won it," the former legislator asserts.
Pressure to withdraw the challenge
The challenge had not even reached the press when the telephone calls began. Colleagues linked to leader Carlos Alarcón contacted her asking her to withdraw it, with threats of stripping her of her seat. A senior leader from Comunidad Ciudadana called her on behalf of Alarcón and offered a verbal guarantee: Mariaca would not achieve two-thirds.
"Luciana, please withdraw the challenge. Carlos Alarcón gave me his word. Mariaca does not have two-thirds. The headlines will say that CC brought down the attorney general's election," Campero recounts being told.
The former deputy withdrew the challenge. The result was different from what had been promised.
The mechanism of the voting fraud
On the day of the vote, Campero was not entitled to vote and followed the session from outside. In the first round, among ten candidates, William Alave—from the masista wing—obtained 19 votes; Milton Montellano, backed by part of the opposition, 29; and Mariaca, 89.
In the second round, according to Campero's account, two political operatives identified as supposedly opposition deputies distributed payments and erasable-ink pens among the assembly members. The described mechanism is as follows: the legislator entered the chamber, marked Montellano, photographed the vote to prove support to their parliamentary group, erased the mark, actually voted for Mariaca, left and collected payment.
"By totalling the real votes circulating in the chat controls of the opposition parliamentary groups, Montellano should have obtained far more than he finally received," Campero asserts. The final result was 115 votes for Mariaca and 33 for Montellano.
Track record and prior suspicions
Campero notes that, before the election, rumours of payments in exchange for votes for Mariaca were already circulating in Parliament corridors. His performance as departmental attorney and his inaction against drug trafficking in his region were, according to the former legislator, signs that only money explained his candidacy.
"His name came through with force and with greenbacks," Campero writes. She, she asserts, was never offered anything, because they knew she would report it immediately.
Alarcón's subsequent shift
The former deputy points to an irony in the subsequent outcome: Carlos Alarcón himself publicly demanded Mariaca's resignation, the same attorney general who, according to Campero, he helped install in office. "Just as he helped put the Ombudsman in place," she notes.
Campero concludes that those who attempted to halt the election through concrete actions were blocked by those who control parliamentary groups from the shadows, and that Bolivia deserves to know, "by name and surname," who allowed what she calls the "MariacaZO".
Luciana Campero Chávez is a lawyer and former deputy.
Source: El Deber