Bolivian President Evo Morales shows a photograph of graffiti that reads “No more Indians” during a news conference Wednesday at Quemado Palace in La Paz. (Aizar Raldes/AFP/Getty Images)
Voters in Bolivia have narrowly rejected a constitutional change that would have allowed leftist Evo Morales, South America’s longest-sitting president, to run for a fourth term and potentially extend his rule to 2025.
The final tally was close, with the “no” vote winning 51 percent to 49 percent for “yes,” with 99.8 percent of votes counted as of Wednesday afternoon.
Morales acknowledged the defeat in a televised appearance Wednesday morning, assuring supporters that the “fight against capitalism and neoliberalism” would soldier on.
“We’ve lost a battle but not the war,” he said. “This isn’t the end of Evo.”
Morales, 56, has spent a decade in power, and the loss was the first electoral setback for the popular former coca grower, who is the first Bolivian president elected from the country’s long-downtrodden indigenous majority.
But even Morales was not immune to the anti-incumbent climate sweeping South America, where leftist leaders have dominated elections for more than a decade by promising to redistribute wealth and boost social spending, buoyed by strong global demand for the region’s commodity exports.
Now the party is ending, as Chinese demand for raw materials goes slack and government revenue from commodity exports is shriveling. Even the most successful South American leaders are paying a price.
Unlike Argentina and Venezuela, where entrenched leftist parties were thrown out amid deep financial troubles, Bolivia has a strong economy, projected to grow 4.5 percent this year. But many Bolivians have grown weary of Morales, who took office in 2006, after a spate of recent scandals. Voters in the region are also increasingly skeptical of attempts to remove democratic checks on power, said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank specializing in Latin American affairs.
“Even Evo’s supporters, who credit him for the country’s progress in recent years, wanted to send a message that three terms in power is more than enough, and it’s healthy for someone else to take charge,” Shifter said. “Bolivia under Evo may have shown some authoritarian tendencies, but it has a democratic system, and it’s natural and normal for people to want change and a fresh political environment after such a long stretch of one man in office.” Read More
