LA PAZ, Bolivia — Voters vigorously endorsed President Evo Morales on Sunday in a recall referendum he devised to try to break a political stalemate and revive his leftist crusade, partial unofficial results showed.
More than 62 percent of voters in this divided Andean nation ratified the mandate of Morales and his vice president, Alvaro Garcia, according to a private quick count of votes from 900 of 22,700 polling stations.
Morales had proposed the recall in a gamble to topple governors who have frustrated his bid to redress historical inequities in favor of Bolivia’s long-suppressed indigenous majority and extend his time in office.
Eight of the country’s nine governors also were subject to recall — and two Morales foes were among the three ousted, according to the quick count, which was conducted by the Ipsos-Apoyo firm for the ATB television network.
Morales’ leftist agenda has met with opposition in the capitalistic eastern half of the country, where protesters accuse him of being a lackey of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. All four governors there easily survived Sunday’s plebiscite, as expected.
But Morales did score gains with the defeat of opposition governors in the highland province of La Paz and in Cochabamba, seat of his coca-growers movement.
Cochabamba Gov. Manfred Reyes, a conservative three-time presidential candidate, refused to recognize the results.
The battle for Bolivia hinges on landownership and natural-gas income. The four eastern lowland provinces — Beni, Pando, Santa Cruz and Tarija — have resisted Morales’ insistence that the central government control energy profits and decide how to distribute them.
The four declared themselves autonomous this year in largely symbolic votes.
