Bolivia’s Morales facing fight as he seeks fourth term

Bolivians voted yesterday to decide whether to give leftist President Evo Morales a controversial fourth term or turn their backs on the country’s first indigenous leader amid allegations of corruption and authoritarianism.

Morales’ popularity has been waning and unlike his previous three election victories, opinion polls say this one is likely to go to an unprecedented second round runoff on December 15.

The latest shows Morales with 32 percent of the vote, while his main challenger, former president Carlos Mesa, has 27 percent.

In an eve-of-poll message on Twitter, Morales called on voters in the resource rich Andean state to participate “peacefully and actively” in the elections.

Mesa said he feared the elections would be fraudulent because of Morales’ powerful grip on key organs of state, and expressed his concerns in a meeting with observers from the Organization of American States.