LA PAZ, Bolivia (UPDATED) – Bolivians on Sunday, February 21, rejected leftist President Evo Morales' bid to seek a fourth term and potentially extend his presidency until 2025, local media projected.
Already the country's longest serving leader, Morales lost a referendum 52.3% to 47.7%, according to unofficial figures cited on private ATB television. Unitel television gave the "no" vote as 51% to 49%.
If confirmed officially, it would be the worst – and first – national political defeat for Morales, who has led the Andean nation for a decade.
Morales had said he expected to see 70% in support of his bid.
Last month, Morales became the longest serving president since Bolivia's independence from Spain in 1825 – a rare accomplishment in a country known for military coups and shaky, short-lived governments.
Now 56, he is Bolivia's first democratically elected president of indigenous heritage.
The campaign formally ended on Thursday, February 18, but continued furiously on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter throughout the weekend.
Morales has overseen robust economic growth in Bolivia, but opponents accuse him of presiding over corruption and investing in flashy infrastructure projects at the expense of health and education.
Problems at voting places
Monitors from UNASUR, a regional political union, had said polls opened "in a climate of absolute calm" in Bolivia, a major gas and mineral producer but one of South America's poorest countries.
But angry voters set fire to ballots and ballot boxes at a polling station in the city of Santa Cruz after they learned there were no election registries, a spokesperson for the regional election tribunal said.
A lack of election materials delayed the start of voting at other places.
A close ally of the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, Morales tested his luck at a time of disenchantment elsewhere in Latin America with longtime leftist leaders such as Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro; Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff; and Argentina's now ex-president Cristina Kirchner.
Another term?
Since taking office the first time in 2006, Morales has been re-elected twice, most recently in 2014 to a 5-year term that ends in 2020.
Under the current constitution adopted in 2009, sitting presidents can only seek re-election once.
But Bolivia's Supreme Court ruled that Morales's first term was exempt from the rule, allowing him to run again in 2014.
Last month, he became the longest serving president.
Voting is mandatory, and some 6.5 million Bolivians were eligible to cast ballots.
His politics blend the indigenous power movement with environmentalism and the "21st-century socialism" preached by other Latin American leftist leaders.
He has nationalized the oil, gas, mining and telecommunications sectors and rolled out welfare grants for the elderly, children and expecting mothers.
Bolivia's mineral- and gas-rich economy has more than tripled in size during his decade in office.
Despite plunging prices for its oil and gas, Bolivia's economy grew 4.8 percent last year, one of the strongest rates in Latin America.
Ex-girlfriend trouble
Morales's most recent, and perhaps most damaging, scandal relates to charges of favoritism shown to CAMC, a Chinese engineering company that won the bid for a major railroad expansion project.
One of the top managers at CAMC's La Paz office is Gabriela Zapata, 28 – Morales's former girlfriend.
Morales is single and has recruited his older sister to perform the functions of first lady.
However, he recently admitted to having a child with Zapata during a two-year relationship that began in 2005 when she was 18. Morales said the child later died.
The president rejected corruption allegations as "a hoax by the US embassy" to discredit him, and insists that he has "nothing to hide."
In an attempt to clear his name, Morales has asked state accounting authorities to investigate the process by which the government signed contracts worth $576 million with CAMC.
Congress has also opened a probe into the allegations. – Raul Burgoa, AFP / Rappler.com