COCHABAMBA, Bolivia -- Socialist candidate Evo Morales, who has promised to halt a U.S-backed campaign to end coca growing, appeared to have to won Bolivia's presidential elections, a victory that would solidify the continent's shift toward the political left.

Raucous celebrations erupted among Morales' supporters after nationally televised exit polls Sunday night showed him with a decisive lead over Jose Quiroga, a former president who was backed by Bolivia's business elite.

Morales, 46, a coca farmer and Aymara Indian, has vowed to become Washington's 'nightmare.' and counts among his friends U.S. critics Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, along with leftists in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.

"There's an enormous responsibility to change our history," Morales told jubilant supporters Sunday night. "And with these election results I'm convinced that the change that the Bolivian people are seeking will be respected."

According to projections by the Equipso Mori exit poll, Morales had 45 percent of the vote and Quiroga had 33 percent. A second exit poll by the private Ipsos Captura organization showed Morales with a slightly narrower lead of 44.5 percent to 34 percent for Quiroga. Minor candidates were getting the rest.

Under Bolivia's election laws, Congress chooses the next president in mid-January if no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the popular vote to win outright.

"I publicly and openly congratulate Don Evo Morales ... for his electoral result," Quiroga said. "Now is the moment to set aside our differences and look to the future with peace, tranquility and harmony among all Bolivians."

Morales thanked a cheering crowd for what he called his "great triumph" but tempered that by saying he would await official results confirming the outcome.

Morales built a political base among many of Bolivia's long-downtrodden Indians, a majority in this country of 8.5 million people, and would be the country's first Indian president. He has promised to increase Indians' rights.

Morales has also pledged to end the U.S.-backed campaign against coca farming and increase state control of Bolivia's vast natural gas reserves.

"If (the U.S.) wants relations, welcome," Morales said after voting, at a news conference where piles of coca leaves were spread atop a Bolivian flag. "But no to a relationship of submission."

Morales has been a thorn in Washington's side since he rose to power leading the coca-leaf farmers in Bolivia's tropical Chapare region in the 1990s. Bolivia is the world's third-largest grower of coca, a plant that has traditional, legal uses among the country's Indians but also is used to make cocaine. U.S.-backed coca eradication efforts there have met with often violent resistance from farmers led by Morales.

"I am the candidate of those despised in Bolivian history, the candidate of the most disdained, discriminated against," he told a crowd of admirers. Some rushed forward to kiss him at a dilapidated basketball court in the village school.

"I'm happy to see the people in power," said Morales supporter Carols Yang. "We're showing the whole world that with each day, the people's struggle for equality, liberty and justice becomes more important."

Outside his campaign headquarters, hundreds of his supporters chanted "Evo! Evo!" In the capital of La Paz, firecrackers boomed and caravans of honking cars paraded down avenues, their passengers shouting "Evo, President!"

Hundreds of international monitors made it one of the mostly closely watched elections in the country's history, and Sunday's voting was conducted under heavy police guard.

The winner starts a five-year term on Jan. 22 as Bolivia's fourth president since August 2002. He succeeds caretaker President Eduardo Rodriguez, who was appointed by Congress on June 8, two days after street protests ended the 18-month administration of Carlos Mesa.

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