ABSTRACT
Radical mobilization of left-indigenous social movements was the defining feature of Bolivian politics between 2000 and 2005. These movements brought down two neoliberal presidents: Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in 2003 and Carlos Mesa in 2005. They were also the necessary backdrop for Evo Morales’ successful bid for the presidency in the December 2005 elections as leader of the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement Towards Socialism, MAS). Morales won an unprecedented 53.7 per cent of the popular vote and became the first indigenous president of the republic. This was a very important development given that 62 per cent of Bolivians self-identify as indigenous (INE 2001). The popular mobilizations which set the stage for Morales’ ascension to the presidency congealed behind two strategic objectives: (1) the nationalization of the hydrocarbons industry; and (2) the formation of a Constituent Assembly in order to eradicate economic and racial oppression of the indigenous majority by the ruling white-mestizo (mixed race) elite, the most powerful section of which is grounded in the agro-industrial and natural gas economies of the eastern lowlands, or media luna (half moon) departments of Pando, Beni, Santa Cruz, and Tarija.1
