LA PAZ: Bolivians voted yesterday in elections widely expected to give indigenous President Evo Morales a third term in office, along with a legislative majority needed to push through his leftist reforms.
Six million Bolivians were casting ballots in the presidential and congressional polls, which would likely expose the weakness of a fragmented opposition.
Voting — which is compulsory — began on schedule at 8am (1200 GMT) and was to end at 4pm. Alcohol consumption was prohibited 48 hours before and 12 hours after polling. Carrying firearms was also banned during the vote.
Morales, who has blended leftwing economic policy with nationalist rhetoric and a focus on indigenous rights and the environment — all while presiding over an economic boom — was estimated to have 59 percent support heading into the election, according to surveys.
That puts him more than 40 points clear of his nearest rivals: business magnate Samuel Doria Medina, with 18 percent, and the conservative former president Jorge Quiroga, with nine percent.
“Bolivians are a democratic people and we expect a massive turnout that will show the country’s unity,” Morales said after casting his ballot in Chapare, in the coca-growing region in central Bolivia he hails from. Posters bearing the slogan “With Evo, we’re doing well” blanketed La Paz on election day, far out-shining the opposition’s propaganda, conspicuously absent. Voter Johny Huanco, in line to cast his ballot in the town of Laja, 30km from La Paz, said polling there was unfolding without incident.
He predicted a “big victory” for Morales’s Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party. Morales stands to extend his time in office to 14 years, until January 2020, after Bolivia’s Supreme Court ruled last year that his first term was exempt from a new constitution adopted in 2009 that imposed a limit of one reelection for sitting presidents.AFP
