BOLIVIA | Morales to coast to third term

President Evo Morales appeared headed to an unprecedented third term in elections yesterday on the strength of the economic and political stability the coca growers’ union leader has brought to a country whose commodities’ wealth he has spread around.
Bolivia’s first indigenous president has become such an institution that stadiums, markets, schools, state enterprises and even a village have been named in his honor.
His anti-imperialist and socialist rhetoric notwithstanding, Morales has been an able steward of Bolivia’s natural gas and mineral wealth.
Since Morales first took office in 2006, a boom in commodities prices has increased export revenues nine-fold, the country has accumulated $15.5 billion in international reserves and economic growth has averaged 5 percent annually, well above the regional average.
Morales has used the windfall to create subsidies for schoolchildren and pensions for the elderly. A half a million people have put poverty behind them. His public works include a communications satellite, a fertilizer plant and La Paz’s gleaming new cable car system. His newest promise: To light up La Paz with nuclear power.
The 55-year-old native Aymara from Bolivia’s poor, wind-swept plateau has capitalized on his everyman image while his Movement Toward Socialism party’s consolidated control over state institutions. He long ago crushed and splintered the opposition centered in the eastern lowlands.
Morales was favored in pre-election polls to defeat by some 40 points the closest of four challengers, cement and fast-food magnate Samuel Doria Medina, and win all nine Bolivian states including Santa Cruz.
Analysts say Morales’ goal yesterday is to try to better his previous best showing — 64 percent of the vote in 2009 — and maintain a two-thirds control of Bolivia’s Senate and assembly. That would enable Morales to change the constitution, which restricts presidents to two 5-year terms, so he could run again. A court ruled last year that Morales could run for a third term because his first occurred before a constitutional rewrite.
Morales has not said whether he would seek a fourth term, only that he would “respect the constitution.” Carlos Valdez, El Alto,  AP