Presidential candidate, coca grower and Aymara Indian leader, Evo Morales

Thirty-eight years after the revolutionary perished in the Bolivian foothills, Evo Morales is poised to become the first indigenous president of the impoverished country which has been run by politicians of European descent since independence in 1825


In the Footsteps of Che Guevara: Democracy in South America
by Daniel Howden

The red carpet shines like blood in the intense heat of a La Paz summer afternoon. It marks the path of a marching band in colonial uniform, cutting a swath down and across Plaza Murilla, the capital's main square. The toy soldiers in their Spanish-era coats pass in front of the fresh bullet-holes pock-marking the Council headquarters and march on to the decorative façade of the National Congress. They are flanked by colleagues in combat fatigues bearing tear-gas rifles, a reminder of the unrest that threatens to engulf Bolivia.


Presidential candidate, coca grower and Aymara Indian leader, Evo Morales (R), and his vice presidential candidate Alvaro Garcia Linera, wave to supporters at the Felix Capriles stadium in Cochabamba, Bolivia, during their electoral campaing closing rally. Morales, the front-runner in Bolivia's presidential race, delivered a defiant speech in the country's economic capital as his campaign wound down, vowing to fight 'parasitic' businesses that feed off the poor(AFP/Aizar Raldes)

Inside the grand and gloomy neo-classical hallways, the Congress is filled with yellowing portraits of the great and good, of European descent, offering a gilt-edged history lesson on who has ruled Latin America's poorest, highest and most racially polarised country since independence in 1825.