Morales dedicates re-election victory to Fidel and Chávez
President Evo Morales of Bolivia won re-election Sunday (Oct. 12) with 60 percent of the votes, according to the private survey firm Ipsos. The outcome was based on 90.4 percent of the votes counted.
Speaking Sunday night from a balcony of the presidential palace, Morales thanked his supporters and said that his victory was “a triumph of liberation, anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism.”
The support he received prompts him “to continue to integrate not only the Bolivians but also the Latin Americans,” he said. The real winner was “the dignity and sovereignty of the Bolivian people and is dedicated to all the peoples in the world who are struggling against imperialism.”
Specifically, he dedicated his victory to Cuban leader Fidel Castro and the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
Other presidents — Raúl Castro of Cuba, José Mujica of Uruguay, Cristina Fernández of Argentina, and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua — immediately phoned Morales their congratulations. Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela tweeted Morales saying, “Long live Bolivia, Tupac Katari, Simón Bolivar, Sucre, Hugo Chávez, Fidel and Evo!”
Eleven percent of the nation’s 6.3-million registered voters abstained. Almost 6 percent of the votes were invalid.
Morales won in eight of Bolivia’s nine departments (provinces). His only loss came in the department of Beni, at the hands of challenger Samuel Doria Medina, who received 25.1 percent of the total votes.
In third place came former President Jorge Quiroga, with 9.6 percent. Fourth was Juan del Granado, former mayor of La Paz, with 2.9 percent of the votes.
Fernando Vargas, an indigenous leader in the Amazonic reservation in Bolivia’s northeast, received 2.7 percent of the votes.
The Electoral Supreme Court was expected to announce the final results at midnight on Sunday.
[Photo above of newly reelected President Evo Morales thanking supporters from balcony of presidential palace. He is flanked by Vice President Alvaro García Linera, at left with white hair, and Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca with black jacket.]
