LA PAZ, Dec 8 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) - Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian who became Bolivia's first indigenous president, easily won re-election over the weekend for another five years under the pledge of continuing the change towards a more stable and robust country.

According to exit polls, the leader of the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) rolled on a landslide victory with between 61 and 63 percent of the vote to easily defeat his conservative and wealthy rivals.

On Sun Dec 6, voters also chose a new Congress, and exit polls indicate Morale's MAS easily won a majority in both the 36-seat Senate and 130-member lower house.

Political analysts have suggested that Morale's victory will extend the stability he has brought to a country notorious for coups and that had five presidents in the five years preceding his Dec 2005 election with 54 percent of the vote.

In his first term in office, Morales used increased profits from Bolivia's natural gas industry, which he nationalised in May 2006, to fund highly popular programmess for the poor, particularly schoolchildren and the elderly. Nearly six of 10 Bolivians live in poverty.

Higher prices for the natural gas and minerals that account for the bulk of Bolivia's exports helped the country's economy grow six percent last year. The government expects three percent growth for this year.

For his second term, Morales had earmarked industrialisation as his main priority. It includes launching state cement, dairy, fertiliser, and pharmaceutical companies and natural gas processing plants.

Another of his pledges is investing in hydroelectric projects and developing the Andean country's huge lithium reserves.

He will also move to attract investors as the country needs to increase raw materials output.

Despite a campaign mainly orchestrated in the United States to scare foreign business people away after Morales moved to put Bolivia's gas fields under state control, investors kept coming specially thanks to the stability his government has brought to the country.

Last month, Bolivia received a pledge of a US$1.5 billion investment from the Spanish-Argentine company "Repsol" for natural gas development.

The Sunday vote came under a new constitution ratified by voters last Jan that allowed Morales to run for a second term and that remade Bolivia as a "plurinational" state, allowing self-rule for the poor South American country's 36 native peoples.

Twelve of Bolivia's more than 330 municipalities voted Sun on indigenous autonomy, which will allow them to abandon modern political structures in favour of traditional Indian governance based on consensus-building.

Still to be defined by the new Congress are larger territorial autonomies for indigenous groups that could redraw the political map and redefine how government funds are disbursed.

In his first term in office, Morales also pushed for constitutional reform. Amid many protests and disputes, he won a victory in a referendum in August 2008 on whether he should stay in office, and then a few months later a referendum approved his plans for a new constitution.

It came into force in Feb this year setting out the rights of the indigenous majority, granting more regional and local autonomy and enshrining state control over key resources. -- NNN-PRENSA LATINA