BOLIVIA: The transfer of power took place amid promises to transform the country and the plight of indigenous people, writes Tom Henniganin La Paz
With a promise to transform South America's poorest country, Evo Morales was sworn in over the weekend as Bolivia's new president, the first to come from the country's indigenous majority.
Morales won a stunning election victory last month on a promise to end Bolivia's experiment with privatisations and free market reforms which brought few benefits to the 60 per cent of the population which live below the poverty line, most of them Indians.
His Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party draws most of its support from the country's indigenous communities, which have suffered centuries of social and political exclusion.
In a fiery inauguration address, Morales remembered how Indians were once banned from even entering the plaza which is home to the country's congress building, and said his victory signalled that "500 years of struggle was not in vain".
The weekend's events started with a special ceremony on Saturday to mark the historic return to power of the country's Indians after five centuries. Held at the pre-Incan ruins at Tiwanaku, indigenous community leaders, known as mallkus, or condors, watched as Indian priests dressed Morales in a traditional robe and hat to symbolise his leadership of the country's Indian peoples.
Morales then made an offering of wine and flowers to Pachamama, the Indian earth goddess, thanking her for his victory and asking for guidance. In a speech afterwards Morales told a crowd that included Indian activists from across the Americas: "Today begins a new era for the indigenous peoples of the world, a new life of justice and equality." The formal transfer of power took place yesterday in front of the country's new congress and most of South America's presidents.
Dispensing with his usual jumper, Morales wore a shirt and jacket, but no tie, as he received the sash of office and the country's presidential medal. Visibly emotional, he was then embraced by his new vice-president, respected sociologist and former guerrilla leader Álvaro García Linera.
The diamond-encrusted presidential medal was made by the country's first congress as an expression of thanks to South American independence hero Simón Bolívar, after whom Bolivia is named. Bolívar returned the medal to Bolivia in his will with the wish that it be given to each new president on their inauguration.
Several senators and deputies from the MAS party sat watching proceedings dressed in traditional Indian clothing, some of them chewing coca leaves.
Morales opened his inaugural address by calling for a minute's silence in memory of the "millions who have struggled for liberty in the Americas", naming among them the Incan leaders who had fought against the Spanish empire, the Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara who was executed in Bolivia in 1967, and coca farmers who died in struggles with the Bolivian army trying to eradicate their coca crops.
Morales said he would call a constitutional assembly this year in order to draw up a new constitution to better reflect the country's indigenous majority. Attacking the country's large landowners in the eastern lowlands, he promised land reform as well as the nationalisation of public services and the country's gas reserves. He also recommitted himself to the free cultivation of the coca leaf - the main ingredient of cocaine.
But observers are still waiting to see exactly what type of government Morales will lead. On his recent world tour he attacked the United States during stop-offs in Venezuela and Cuba, but in Spain and France said Bolivia was looking for "partners" willing to invest in the country, and he has already held talks with the US ambassador in La Paz.
But if Morales's tour failed to reveal what type of leader he would be, it at least "allayed fears he'd be an ignorant indigenous leader or run-amok socialist", says Eduardo Gamarra, the Bolivian head of the Latin American and Caribbean Centre at Florida International University.
The new government's main challenge will be managing the enormous expectations surrounding the Morales's rise to power. "Evo has made so many promises he will either save the country or he'll sink it. One or the other," says Eduardo Gutierrez, a MAS supporter and Aymara Indian who turned out for Evo's inauguration. "But I think he can do it."
Also yesterday, Morales and the leader of Bolivia's bitter enemy, Chile, held a historic meeting to begin talks towards restoring full diplomatic relations and resolving one of South America's oldest border disputes.
Chilean president Ricardo Lagos met Morales hours before his swearing-in at Morales's humble home. Together they raised their hands on the balcony to the crowd outside and referred to each other as "brothers" and "friends".
"Today, a leader with extraordinary legitimacy takes office and we hope to have the best of relations," said Lagos, the first Chilean leader to attend the inauguration of a Bolivian president. "We have excluded nothing from our talks."