Bolivian voters reject letting Evo Morales run for 4th term

The vote was 51 percent to 49 percent against the ballot question, with 99.5 percent of the ballots counted, a margin of just over 150,000 votes, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal reported. The outcome of Sunday’s referendum also blocks Vice President Alvaro Garcia from running again.

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Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, helped lift millions out of poverty by more equitably distributing natural gas revenues, spurring the creation of an indigenous middle class.

But his governing Movement Toward Socialism party has been buffeted by scandal. The vote closely followed a revelation that Morales may have been personally involved in influence-peddling.

Until Sunday’s ballot, Morales had won nationwide elections, including a 2009 rewrite of the constitution, with an average 61.5 percent of the vote

The referendum’s margin of defeat coincided almost exactly with two unofficial “quick count” samples announced Sunday by polling firms.

The results showed allegations of vote fraud by some members of the opposition to be unfounded, said Jose Luis Exeni, a member of the electoral tribunal.

The vote count had been unusually slow and Vice President Alvaro Garcia said earlier Tuesday that the outcome would be a “cliff-hanger.”

He claimed a right-wing conspiracy was “trying to make disappear by sleight of hand the rural vote that favors Morales.” Garcia provided no evidence to back the claim.

Organization of American States observers reported no evidence of fraud, and the OAS delegation’s leader, former Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez, left Bolivia on Tuesday.