Bolivia: Evo Morales Won’t Run for Re-Election

Bolivian President Evo Morales will not run for re-election in 2019 as the “No” side won a narrow lead over the “Yes” of 51.3 percent versus 48.7 percent, according to reports from electoral authorities

The margin between the “No” and “Yes” camps drastically narrowed since results started to be reported Sunday night.

Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Liñera said Tuesday that the right-wing opposition was trying to undermine and ignore the power of the popular vote in rural and Indigenous areas and called on the country to wait for the final results of the national referendum on presidential term limits to be announced.

“It’s election bullying and right-wing opposition forces are attempting electoral fraud … against the campesino vote and Indigenous vote, which is the vote that still needs to be considered,” Garcia Liñera said in a press conference, adding that it was part of a right-wing attempt to destabilize the government, according to Bolivia’s Pagina Siete.

He also said that the government will respect the result and rejected the right-wing opposition’s claims that President Evo Morales was defeated in Sunday’s referendum that will decide whether he can run for reelection one last time in 2019.

“We ask the opposition to calm down and respect the results … We respect the ‘No’ side in the places where it has won and we expect them to do the same in the areas that have voted ‘Yes,’” said Garcia Liñera.

Garcia Liñera insisted that results were likely to change as votes from the rural and more isolated communities, where the Morales’ ruling MAS party enjoys the most support, often come in last. Official final results will not be announced until Thursday.

The vice president said President Morales rejected allegations of fraud, urging the opposition to deliver evidence and prove their accusations.

Over 6 million registered voters participated in over 29,000 polling stations across the country on Sunday after a referendum campaign that pitted “Yes” campaign supporters of the Morales government against the opposition-backed “No” campaign, including what the president claimed was a coordinated smear campaign against his name.

First elected in 2005, Morales is Bolivia’s longest-serving president.

 

Taken from http://www.telesurtv.net/english