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Evo Morales has accused Bolivia’s opposition of plotting a coup against him, after they challenged election results suggesting the incumbent president may have won a contentious fourth term as president.
“I want to denounce before the Bolivian people and the world that there’s a coup d’état in the making,” Mr Morales said on Wednesday as he declared a state of emergency. He called on his supporters to “mobilise peacefully” and be “prepared to defend democracy” in a country with a history of violent street protests.
The dramatic intervention followed days of unrest in Bolivia following an election on Sunday that prompted expressions of concern from both the Organization of American States and the EU.
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Protesters set fire to electoral offices in a number of cities while demonstrators took to the streets of the administrative capital La Paz to accuse the government of tampering with the results to win another five-year term. Police used tear gas to disperse them.
Mr Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous leader who has been in power for 14 years, on Wednesday continued to hold a lead over his rival, the former president Carlos Mesa. With 96.78 per cent of ballots counted, official results showed Mr Morales was ahead with 46.49 per cent, while Mr Mesa was on 37.01 per cent.
He requires at least 40 per cent of the vote, plus a lead of more than 10 percentage points, to win outright. If he wins, he would avoid a December run-off vote, which analysts said he may lose against a united opposition.
However, Mr Morales insisted that when the remaining votes came in from the countryside he would win outright. “I am very sure that with the vote from the rural areas we will win on the first round,” he said.
In an election in which more than 7m ballots were cast, Mr Morales’s lead was less than 600,000 votes, the tightest result since he swept to a presidential victory for the first time in 2005.
Addressing thousands of supporters in La Paz on Tuesday, Mr Mesa attacked Mr Morales and reiterated that he would challenge the result. “Bolivia’s society will teach the dictator we are capable of facing him without violence . . . Democracy, yes, dictatorship, no,” said Mr Mesa.
