Bolivian President Evo Morales is preparing to turn an expected easy re-election victory in weekend polls into a legal club to crush his distant conservative rival.
Morales, 50, has accused Manfred Reyes Villa, a former governor and candidate in today’s election, of corruption and links to the murders of at least 12 pro-Morales supporters during 2007 unrest.
Early last week, Morales charged that Reyes Villa, 54, and his running mate were “thieves” who would be jailed under a new law he intends to introduce once the election was out of the way.
On Thursday, Morales’ government also claimed Reyes Villa had bought an airline ticket to leave Bolivia the day after the election in violation of a travel ban pending his trial.
Polls credit Morales, an Aymara Indian who enjoys overwhelming support from Bolivia’s indigenous majority, with more than 50 percent of ballots.
Reyes Villa, who was in charge of Cochabamba state before losing the governorship under a referendum Morales engineered last year, was seen trailing with just 18 percent support.
He has denied the charges against him and accusations he intended to fly out tomorrow.
“I am going to be Bolivia’s next president. Next Tuesday or Wednesday will see me here in Sucre. I am going to be with you,” Reyes Villa told reporters on Thursday in the city, which shares the status of Bolivia’s capital with La Paz.
Alcohol sales and the carrying of firearms were suspended nationwide on Friday ahead of the vote.
Elected to office in 2005, Morales is the first indigenous Bolivian elected president in the country, South America’s poorest despite significant natural gas reserves.
His re-election to a second term was made possible under a referendum in January that modified the one-term cap for president.
Regionally, Morales is a strong ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and shares his hostility toward the US and Spanish-descended elites who have historically ruled over South America’s natives.
During his rule, Morales has resolutely imposed socialist policies to improve the lives of the impoverished indigenous groups that make up 60 percent of the population, notably by nationalizing the energy and telecommunications sectors.
But he has also angered other Bolivians descended from Europeans who have seen their landholdings and political control in the more prosperous eastern half of the country whittled down under reforms.
That animosity spilled over into the September 2007 shootings of a dozen peasants who had been demonstrating in favor of Morales in a remote part of northern Pando state.
Anti-Morales activists were blamed for the killings. The government accused opposition figures, including Pando’s state governor and Reyes Villa, of having a hand in the violence.
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