(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – Evo Morales could earn a new term in office in Bolivia’s presidential election, according to a poll by Track released by Unitel. 52 per cent of respondents would support the incumbent head of state in next month’s ballot.
(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – Evo Morales could earn a new term in office in Bolivia’s presidential election, according to a poll by Track released by Unitel. 52 per cent of respondents would support the incumbent head of state in next month’s ballot.
Former Cochabamba mayor Manfred Reyes Villa of the New Republican Force (NFR) is a distant second with 22 per cent, followed by Samuel Doria Medina of the National Unity Front (FUN) with 10 per cent, and Potosí mayor René Joaquino with only three per cent.
In 2005, 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. The first indigenous leader to become president of Bolivia was officially sworn in January 2006.
Morales’s tenure has been focused on "re-founding" Bolivia through a new constitution. The new document was ratified last January.
The revamped constitution includes 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 has been scheduled for Dec. 6. Morales is seeking re-election.
On Nov. 11, Doria Medina criticized the current government’s close ties with Venezuela, declaring, "We firmly oppose the visit of [Venezuelan president] Hugo Chávez to our country. (…) Now we understand that Evo Morales prefers to spend on planes and weapons."
Polling Data
Who would you vote for in the presidential election?
|
Evo Morales
|
52%
|
|
Manfred Reyes Villa
|
22%
|
|
Samuel Doria Medina
|
10%
|
|
René Joaquino
|
3%
|
|
Other / Blank ballot
|
13%
|
Source: Track / Unitel
Methodology: Interviews with 1,598 Bolivian adults, conducted Oct. 29 to Nov. 6, 2009. Margin of error is 2.4 per cent.
