A coca farmer welcomes Bolivia’s President Evo Morales, center, as he arrives to a polling station to vote in Villa 14 de Septiembre, in the Chapare region, February 21, 2016.
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Diplomatic cables leaked by wikileaks in 2015 showed plans by the USA government in 2008 to either assist in the toppling of the Evo Morales’ government or allow his assassination.
Exit polls suggest President Evo Morales of Bolivia has narrowly lost a referendum to allow him to stand for a fourth term in office. Bolivians are voting in a referendum on whether to amend the cons…
Bolivia’s constitution could be amended, as President Evo Morales is seeking to run for a fourth consecutive term in office.
Voters were about evenly split – with some 15 percent undecided – on whether to give Bolivia’s first indigenous president another shot at governing before the bombshell hit.
In an attempt to clear his name, Morales has asked state accounting authorities to investigate the process by which the government signed contracts worth $576 million with CAMC.
Morales denied any impropriety and said he last saw the woman in 2007 when a child they conceived died under circumstances that neither has explained.
Various scandals have plagued Morales’ party, Movement Toward Socialism, including accusations that he showed favoritism for a Chinese engineering company in the construction of a railroad. Pro-Morales forces are accused of setting the fire that led to the deaths and torching documents that allegedly incriminate the previous mayor in payroll corruption.
Morales says the charges are dirty tactics created to divert attention from his achievements in cutting Bolivia’s extreme poverty and empowering the country’s indigenous majority during a decade in office. She echoed the complaint of others that too many jobs depend on political patronage.
His core supporters are voters like widowed mother-of-ten Lourdes Alarcon, who says in recent years she has seen new schools, improved sanitation and paved roads in Achocalla, a rural area on the outskirts of the capital La Paz.
Alejandro Perez, an independent lawyer, said he voted “yes” because “we’ve got to ensure continuity”. “I am not sure whether (the money) is sent by the corrupt criminals who fled to the United States, or by the U.S. State Department”, said Morales, referring to the Bolivian opposition leaders that have found shelter in the United States.
Last month, he became the longest serving president since Bolivia’s independence from Spain in 1825 – a rare accomplishment in a country known for military coups and shaky, short-lived governments. Morales was able to seek re-election a second time in 2014 due to a ruling by the Constitutional Court, which determined that his first term didn’t count because it preceded the new constitution.
Under Morales, average per capita income rose from $873 to $3,119 and a new indigenous middle class was born.
If the result is confirmed as a loss for Morales, it would be another blow for South American’s once dominant populist leftist movement that has suffered a series of recent electoral defeats across the continent.
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Despite plunging prices for its oil and gas, Bolivia’s economy grew 4.8 percent a year ago, one of the strongest rates in Latin America.
