Evo Morales Wins Bolivian Presidential Referendum

The Bolivian president, Evo Morales, easily won a recall referendum last night and vowed to press ahead with plans to transform the country into a leftwing centralist state.

Morales, a former coca leaf farmer who is Bolivia's first Indian leader, hopes the victory will enable him to push through reforms including nationalizations, land redistribution and a constitution favoring the long-marginalized indigenous majority.

"What the Bolivian people have expressed with their votes … is the consolidation of change," Morales told thousands of cheering supporters who gathered outside his presidential palace in La Paz.

"We're here to move forward with the recovery of our natural resources, the consolidation of nationalization and the state takeover of companies."

Unofficial exit polls said Morales had secured between 60% and two-thirds of the vote – an improvement of his result in the last presidential election, in December 2005, when he took nearly 54%.

An exit poll by the private TV channel Unitel said Morales had won 60.12% of the vote, while a count by the pollster Ipsos Apoyo for channel ATB gave him 63.1%. Final official results are due in the next few days.

However, last night's vote also saw regional governors who oppose his reforms and want autonomy for their resource-rich provinces win re-election.

Their victories mean the conflict over his proposals will continue, with both sides feeling they have won a new mandate to stand firm.

Supporters of both Morales and the main opposition governors alike took to the streets, waving banners, chanting, dancing and setting off firecrackers after a peaceful vote that contrasted with violent protests earlier in the week.

"I'm glad he has won, because Mr Morales is one of us - he's working class like me," Hector Gutierrez, a 32-year-old computer technician, said.

"I expect things to improve now, because someone from the same background as me cannot let me down."

The bitter power struggle between Morales and opposition governors has exposed deep divisions between the wealthier east and the more indigenous west of the country, forcing him to put many reforms on hold.

Morales approved the referendum in an apparent bid to undermine the regional governors' campaigns for autonomy, but the results suggest a standoff will continue unless a compromise can be negotiated.

"The initial reading is that the political crisis and tension in the country is going to deepen greatly," Franklin Pareja, a professor of political science at the state-run San Andres University in La Paz, said.

Regional governors are angry that Morales has cut their share of windfall natural gas revenues, accusing him of governing only for his supporters.

They also see him as a lackey of the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, the vocal leader of a group of radical leftwing Latin American presidents.