Exit polls and a quick count tabulation by Uno television showed Morales took at least 61 percent of the vote and held a lead of more than 35 percentage points over his closest challenger, rightist former governor Manfred Reyes Villa.
Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, is hugely popular among the Indian majority that also supported a constitutional reform earlier this year to allow him to run for a second consecutive term. Hundreds of Morales supporters, some waving rainbow colored indigenous flags, crowded outside the presidential palace on Sunday night shouting “Evo Again! Evo Again!”
Veronica Canizaya, a 49-year-old housewife said she voted for Morales because of his aid programs in South America’s poorest country.
“He’s changing things,” she said before casting her ballot at a public school on the shores of Lake Titicaca. “He’s helping the poor and building highways and schools.”
Morales is an ally of Venezuela’s socialist Presi-dent Hugo Chavez and ramped up social spending in his first term, tapping increased government revenue after he nationalized Bolivia’s energy industry in 2006 and raised taxes on natural gas production. Bolivia, home to 10 million people, is South America’s top exporter of the fuel.
But opponents say he has failed to increase output, stamp out corruption in the state-run energy company and develop the natural gas industry, signs of future challenges as Morales tightens the state’s grip on the economy.
He pledges to launch state-run paper, cement, dairy and drug companies and develop iron and lithium industries to help Bolivia export value-added products instead of raw materials.
“Brothers and sisters, this is an electoral fight to change Bolivia,” Morales, a former llama herder who never attended high school, said on the campaign trail.
The third-place contender in the presidential race, cement magnate Samuel Doria Medina, conceded defeat last evening as exit polls showed him taking 6 percent of votes. Morales’ anti-capitalist rhetoric blaming foreign investors for ransacking the country’s mineral and energy riches has slowed investment.
It also threatens to undermine what could potentially be its next source of mineral wealth: lithium. Bolivia is believed to be home to one of the world’s largest lithium deposits.
Lithium carbonate is the main component of the rechargeable batteries that power laptop computers, cell phones and digital cameras. Demand for the metal could soar if car makers begin large-scale manufacturing of electric vehicles.
