According to exit polls by three different firms, Bolivian president Evo Morales appears to have won a second five-year term in general elections on Dec. 6 with 61-63.2% of the vote. Right-wing former Cochabamba governor Manfred Reyes Villa was projected to get 23-25%, followed by center-right business owner Samuel Doria Medina with 7%.

Morales, a leader in the cocalero (coca grower) movement who at his inauguration in 2006 became the country's first indigenous president, was expected to win easily. There was more question about the results for the Plurinational Assembly, which will have 130 deputies and 36 senators. The exit polls indicated that Morales' leftist Movement to Socialism (MAS) party had won the two-thirds majority it would need to pass major constitutional reforms. (AFP, Dec. 6; El País, Spain, Dec. 7)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Dec. 6

See our last post on Bolivia.