Bolivian President Evo Morales said today he would deepen reforms focused on Indian power and state control of the economy after exit polls showed he has secured re-election.
While official results are not expected until this evening, initial counts showed Mr Morales has secured at least 63 per cent of the vote, more than 35 percentage points ahead of his closest challenger, rightist former Governor Manfred Reyes Villa.
Mr Morales' Movement Toward Socialism party also won absolute control of Congress with more than two-thirds of the seats in the lower house and the Senate, exit polls showed.
That leaves his divided conservative opposition with little power to oppose his reforms during his five-year second term.
Mr Morales is Bolivia's first indigenous president and is hugely popular among the Indian majority that also supported a constitutional reform earlier this year to allow him to run for a second consecutive term in South America's poorest country.
"Bolivians have given us an enormous responsibility to deepen this transformation," he said at a news conference.
Bolivians have punished the people who are traitors of this process." Critics claim Mr Morales (50) has scared away foreign investment with nationalizations of key sectors of the economy and is ruling only for Indian ethnic groups instead of all Bolivians.
Mr Morales has given Indian communities more authority over investment in natural resources in their territories and his new constitution enshrines traditional religions and practices.
With two-thirds of Congress the ruling party can call for public votes to amend the constitution, if they so wish, and will control judicial appointments as well.
However, analysts said Mr Morales may moderate his rhetoric in order to attract foreign investment so he can move forward with ambitious state business projects.
Mr Morales has pledged to launch state-run paper, cement, dairy and drug companies and develop iron and lithium industries to help Bolivia export value-added products instead of raw materials.
Many voters were won over by government cash payments to school children, mothers and pensioners, which reached a quarter of Bolivia's 10 million people this year.