Morales favored for reelection in Bolivia

Bolivia's socialist President Evo Morales is expected to score a reelection sweep next Sunday so solid that he likely will win on the first ballot and avoid a run-off, polls show, AFP reports.

A week ahead of presidential and congressional elections, Morales was expected to get 59 percent of the vote, against 18 for centrist businessman Samuel Doria Medina and nine percent for ex-president Jorge Quiroga, surveys show.

Morales -- who was the majority indigenous country's first democratically elected indigenous president -- has rallied his Movement to Socialism party, urging it to help him win with 80 percent.

Now 54, Morales was first elected in 2005. The opposition's best hope is to manage to force a runoff if Morales does not get 50 percent of the votes plus one.

Bolivia under Morales has been experiencing steady economic growth largely on the back of oil and gas exports. Yet poverty is still a major concern, as Bolivia is South America's poorest nation.