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Bolivians Head for Polls amid Fury at U.S. Interference
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Morales
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LA PAZ, June 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Bolivians headed for the polls early Sunday to elect a new president and members of the legislature, as Presidential candidates agreed to reject U.S. interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.
Bolivians hope the new leadership will be able to raise standards of living and quell labor unrest. Voting began at 8:00 am (1200 GMT) throughout the landlocked Andean nation, with 50 Organization of American States observers monitoring the process, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
A total of 11 candidates of all political hues are slugging it out in the Presidential contest. However, the most heated contest pits populist ex-army Captain Manfred Reyes Villa against two former Presidents and a leftist defender of the country's coca leaf farmers.
Reyes Villa, who leads with 26.6 percent of likely voters in the latest polls, took to the airwaves Friday with pleas that more than half of the country's 4.2 million eligible voters turn out on Sunday to provide a solid foundation for the next government.
"Consult your heart and vote without fear," said the right-wing candidate in the latest barrage of advertisements.
Reyes Villa said he would seek to boost agricultural production and send trade missions overseas to explore new markets for Bolivian products.
But the four-times Cochabamba mayor showed an unwillingness to compromise, vowing to avoid any post-election alliance that would tie him to a "neo-liberal orthodox" development model.
Reyes Villa's closest rival, former liberal president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, is likely to get between 20.2 percent and 17 percent of the vote, according to opinion surveys.
The polls also show that Social-Democrat Jaime Paz Zamora is running third with between 16 percent and 13 percent of the ballot, followed by Socialist Evo Morales, a supporter of coca farmers and opponent of the U.S.-led war on drugs, who is projected to garner about 13 percent of the vote.
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Manfred Reyes Villa |
Since none of the candidates is expected to win more than 50 percent of the ballot on Sunday, the fate of the Bolivian presidency will likely be decided in a runoff contest between the two top vote-getters on August 4.
The vice presidential slot as well as 27 Senate and 130 deputy seats are also up for grabs.
Last week, Bolivia's National Electoral Court accused U.S. Ambassador Manuel Rocha of violating the Bolivian constitution, charging that he interfered in the country's election process.
Rocha warned Bolivians earlier in the week that the U.S. government could withdraw funding for the war against drugs, if Morales won the election.
The United States, however, gave its firm backing to its ambassador to Bolivia who has come under fire for interfering in the Andean country's upcoming Presidential elections.
The State Department said Rocha was not acting inappropriately when he warned that Washington could withdraw anti-drug funding to La Paz if Morales wins this Sunday's elections.
Spokeswoman Lynn Cassel said that Rocha was responding to threats from Morales that he would close the U.S. Embassy and the offices of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Bolivia if he were elected.
"If a candidate with Mr. Morales' agenda were to be elected in any country and pursued that agenda, the United States would of course re-examine the full range of its relationship with that country," Cassel said.
"His statements raise serious doubts about commitments to goals that are highly valued by both Americans and Bolivians," she said.
Rocha's comments on Wednesday provoked a furor among the Bolivian media and politicians who denounced them as "unacceptable interference" in the election akin to blackmail.
On the eve of the vote, and in a televised address to the nation, Bolivian President Jorge Quiroga urged his compatriots to fulfill their civic duty and cast their ballots.
"We will all take part in a democratic exercise, and I'm certain that we will once again defeat absenteeism and apathy," the President said.
As many as 30,000 police and army troops have been deployed around the country to enforce public security and protect the ballot boxes.
Borders have been closed and sales of alcohol during balloting prohibited, according to government officials.
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