(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – Evo Morales could earn a new term in office in Bolivia, according to a poll by Equipos MORI published in Poder y Placer. 43 per cent of respondents would support Morales in December’s presidential election.
(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – Evo Morales could earn a new term in office in Bolivia, according to a poll by Equipos MORI published in Poder y Placer. 43 per cent of respondents would support Morales in December’s presidential election.
Former vice-president and indigenous activist Víctor Hugo Cárdenas is a distant second with 11 per cent, followed by former Cochabamba mayor Manfred Reyes Villa of the New Republican Force (NFR) with 10 per cent, Samuel Doria Medina of the National Unity Front (FUN) with nine per cent, and Potosí mayor René Joaquino of Wide Front (FA) with four per cent.
Morales—an indigenous leader and former coca-leaf farmer—won the December 2005 presidential election as the candidate for the Movement to Socialism (MAS), with 53.7 per cent of the vote. He officially took over as Bolivia’s head of state in January 2006.
Morales’s tenure has been focused on "re-founding" Bolivia through a new constitution. In November 2007, a draft constitution was approved with the support of all pro-government National Constituent Assembly members. Opposition parties boycotted the vote.
Last year, the departments of Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija—all led by politicians opposed to Morales—held votes in an effort to increase their autonomy within Bolivia, directly defying articles in the new constitution. In response to the non-binding referendums, Morales enacted a law that scheduled a recall vote on himself, Bolivian vice-president Álvaro García Linera, and the country’s nine governors or "departmental prefects" in August. The president and vice-president were ratified with more than 60 per cent of the vote.
In January, Bolivia’s new constitution was ratified with 61 per cent of the vote in a nationwide referendum. The revamped version included a bill of rights and an entire chapter dedicated to Bolivia’s 36 indigenous nations. It also put the economy in the hands of the state, limited landholdings, redistributed revenues from gas fields in the eastern lowlands to the country’s poorer areas, and included a compromise that will allow the current president to seek only one additional five-year term. Under the terms of the new body of law, a general election was scheduled for Dec. 6.
On Aug. 19, Reyes Villa announced an alliance with Progress for Bolivian (PPB) leader José Luis Paredes. On that same day, Cárdenas said a unified opposition candidate remains a possibility, adding, "We agreed with Manfred that it is not wise to provide information until the negotiations are finished."
Polling Data
Who would you vote for in the presidential election?
|
Evo Morales |
43% |
|
Víctor Hugo Cárdenas |
11% |
|
Manfred Reyes Villa |
10% |
|
Samuel Doria Medina |
9% |
|
René Joaquino |
4% |
Source: Equipos MORI / Poder y Placer
Methodology: Interviews with 2,100 Bolivian adults in Cochabamba, El Alto, La Paz, Santa Cruz, and Tarija, conducted in July 2009. Margin of error is 3.1 per cent.
