Morales claims landslide win

BOLIVIA: Bolivian President Evo Morales claimed a landslide re-election victory on Sunday as voters backed his left-wing reforms asserting greater state control over the economy and increasing social spending on the poor.

Official results were not due until Monday but exit polls and a quick count tabulation showed Morales took at least 61 percent of the vote, more than 35 percentage points ahead of his closest challenger, rightist former governor Manfred Reyes Villa.

Morales is Bolivia’s first indigenous president and 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.

“This process of change has prevailed,” Morales said on Sunday night from the balcony of the presidential palace where thousands of supporters waving rainbow colored indigenous flags shouted “Evo Again! Evo Again!” He said he won 63 percent of votes.

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.”

La Paz, Monday, Reuters