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Morales Will Likely Be Re-Elected in Bolivia
(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Evo Morales will likely stay in power after a general election takes place next month, according to a poll by Captura Consulting released by PAT. 51 per cent of respondents would vote for Morales in the December ballot.
Former Cochabamba mayor Manfred Reyes Villa of the New Republican Force (NFR) is a distant second with 16 per cent, followed by Samuel Doria Medina of the National Unity Front (FUN) with eight per cent, and Potosí mayor René Joaquino with only two 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. He was officially sworn in as Bolivia’s first indigenous head of state 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. 17, Reyes Villa said that Morales’s re-election could bring about a "totalitarian state" in which the legislature would be nothing more than "a vase of flowers; a decoration."
Polling Data
Who would you vote for in the presidential election?
|
Evo Morales |
51% |
|
Manfred Reyes Villa |
16% |
|
Samuel Doria Medina |
8% |
|
René Joaquino |
2% |
|
Other / Blank ballot |
23% |
Source: Captura Consulting / PAT
Methodology: Interviews with 2,545 Bolivian adults, conducted Oct. 24 to Nov. 3, 2009. Margin of error is 2.4 per cent.