The allocation of parliamentary seats to the nine departments of Bolivia varies according to the evolution of the population in each of them, so based on data from the National Institute of Statistics, Santa Cruz will increase its number of seats and could become the largest bench in the country.
The Plurinational Electoral Body (OEP) is in charge of carrying out this modification and once the new census is carried out, it will call a meeting to materialize the changes, for the first time since 2013, year in which Santa Cruz, the second largest city and the economic engine of the country, increased its presence in the Chamber.
The Electoral Regime Law was enacted in 2010 and this assigned a certain number of representatives to each of the nine departments, in accordance with the then newly approved Constitution. However, after the 2012 census, the seats granted to each of these regions were reconfigured, according to ‘El Debate’.
Thus, with the Law of Distribution of Seats, Santa Cruz obtained 28 deputies, which increased the number of seats by three with respect to the 2009 general elections. On the other hand, the departments of Potosí, Chuquisaca and Beni lost one representative each.
Almost ten years later, while the Latin American country is waiting for the census to be held, which has generated weeks of protests due to the refusal of Luis Arce’s government to carry it out in 2023, INE’s projections indicate that the same process could take place, due to the great business weight that the department has acquired.
