Bolivia’s President Morales claims victory in election

LIMA — President Evo Morales of Bolivia said that he has won a third consecutive term, although electoral authorities were slow to reveal vote totals. Morales’ reelection was widely anticipated, and the president, who faced a fractured opposition, was propelled by a buoyant economy and a sustained drop in poverty in one of the region’s poorest countries.

On Sunday, Morales announced his victory in a speech from the balcony of a government building in one of the main public squares of La Paz, saying, “This victory is the victory of the anti-colonialists and the anti-imperialists.” He suggested that he had received more than 60 percent of the vote while a crowd chanted his name.

Morales held a strong lead in public opinion polls going into Sunday’s election and had four candidates running against him. He was also aided by the economy’s growth of more than 6 percent last year, driven by strong internal demand and natural gas sales to two of the country’s neighbors, Brazil and Argentina.

Morales, 54, who after first taking office in 2006 exerted more control over foreign oil and gas companies and raised the taxes and royalties that they pay, has also spent on infrastructure, building roads and an aerial cable-car system connecting La Paz with El Alto, a fastgrowing sister city. Social programs include payments to the families of young students and increased pensions for the elderly.

Today 1 in 5 people in this country of about 10.5 million lives in extreme poverty, compared with more than a third of the population in 2006, according to the national statistics office.

Morales, an Aymara Indian who was born into poverty, is a leftist allied with Venezuela’s socialist-inspired government, and he has frequently clashed with the United States, expelling the U.S. ambassador in 2008, the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2009 and the U.S. Agency for International Development last year.

But he has been far more pragmatic than his Venezuelan allies in his management of the economy. Bolivia has emerged from years of economic fragility to hold impressive foreign reserves and modest debt. After years of coups and failed governments, Morales has established an unusual level of political stability.

A new term for Morales would keep him in the presidency until 2020. The constitution bars him from seeking reelection after that. But many here wonder if he or his party will seek a constitutional change that would open the way for him to run again, as his ally Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela and as another leftist, Rafael Correa, appears set to do in Ecuador.

Like other leftist leaders in the region, Morales has been criticized for undermining democratic safeguards, like the independence of the judiciary.