October 2020 Election Violence Risk Briefing
By: Matt Scott Frank
Tags: Forecasting, Elections, Politics, Bolivia, Machine Learning

October could be a dangerous month for elections, with five having a greater than 50% estimated probability of election violence.

Droupathi in Virata’s Palace by Raja Ravi Varma

The Electoral Violence Intelligence System (ELVIS) is a machine learning driven forecasting system that estimates the risk of election-related violence for every national election every month. These posts will provide updates on the outputs of our forecasting model, give an in-depth view of what to expect in the coming month and note any technical changes/updates.

Feel free to reach out to either myself (mfrank@oneearthfuture.org) or Clayton Besaw (cbesaw@oneearthfuture.org) for any questions regarding our ELVIS platform or analyses contained in the updates.

October 2020 ELVIS report

Data and algorithm updates:

Updated precipitation (SPI) estimates using NOAA’s August 2020 PREC/L release (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.prel.html).

Added new data for infant mortality rate from the World Bank. Future IMR forecasts now based on data up to 2019.

Corrected election dates for the following countries: Tajikistan, Seychelles

Added final outcome information for the following election events: Belgium

Risk forecast for October 2020:

Country Spotlights

Kyrgyz Republic

The Kyrgyz Republic held parliamentary elections this past Sunday that have sparked protests in the capital, with opposition figures and protesters alleging electoral fraud. As of writing protests are still ongoing, however, reporting indicates that over 100 people have been injured so far.

The past three elections in the Kyrgyz Republic have been peaceful, with the last violent election occurring in 2010 during which limited violence was carried out against a few political candidates. However, the election was preceded by mass protests that led to the ouster of the incumbent government and large-scale violence in the country’s south.

Bolivia

Bolivia is heading into a contentious election with high estimated risk of electoral violence. The election will be the first since last October when then-president Evo Morales was forced from power following allegations of electoral fraud by the Organization of American States (OAS). Studies have since found flaws in the statistical methods used by the OAS.

More recently, interim president Jeanine Añez announced that she would be dropping out of the race due to poor poll numbers. She has also made an effort to ensure the vote is not split in a way that allows the Movement to Socialism (MAS) candidate Luis Arce to secure victory.

Añez’s decision to drop out of the race may have a calming effect on the country’s politics. Her administration often flouted the line between democracy and authoritarianism, especially so given that her own interim presidency was never publicly condoned by the electorate. Her government persecuted political opponents and members of the press while also stacking key military positions with loyalists.

Moreover, her decision to continuously delay the election, combined with a lackluster domestic response to the coronavirus pandemic, elicited large protests throughout the country in August.

Without Añez the field of candidates is between more centrist conservative candidates and the leftist Arce. Given less polarizing choices on election day, the chance of election violence may be reduced by her decision to bow out.

Chile

Elsewhere in South America, Chile’s constitutional referendum is also projected to have a high risk of electoral violence. The referendum would offer the opportunity to begin rewriting the country’s constitution.

The impetus for the referendum can be found in last year’s massive and violent protests over income inequality in the country. Although polling suggests the measure will pass relatively easily, demonstrations have already been met with force by police.

In one incident, a police officer in Santiago pushed a teenager off a bridge, which then led to more demonstrations against the police, who were widely accused of using excessive force during last year’s demonstrations. Such escalatory cycles may continue into election day.

Guinea and Ivory Coast

The two other elections with the highest risk of electoral violence are Guinea and the Ivory Coast. Both of these countries are also at high risk of coup and are discussed at greater length in our CoupCast update.

November and December

Turning to the rest of the year, there are still a decent number of elections left in the last two months of the year. Moreover, many of these elections have a greater than 50% risk of electoral violence, with Venezuela, Burkina Faso and Ghana having the greatest risk.