Bolivia:"We, the poor, also have the right to govern"

reuters: Bolivia makes history with first Indian president

Bolivia will swear in leftist Evo Morales as its first indigenous president on Sunday in a festive climate as the poor Indian majority celebrates the long-awaited rise to power of one of its own.

Morales takes office after winning 54 percent of the vote on December 18 in the biggest landslide since the country's return to democracy in 1982.

Bolivians rich and poor hope the historic handover will bring stability to their nation, South America's poorest, where the two previous presidents were toppled by street protests.

In an unprecedented show of international support for the landlocked country, 12 heads of state will be in the world's highest capital to watch the Aymara Indian and coca growers' leader don the presidential sash in Congress.

Many of those presidents are fellow Latin American leftists, a reflection of the region's shift leftward as voters reject free-market economic policies that did little to bring down high poverty rates.

"We, the poor, also have the right to govern and in Bolivia, the poor indigenous have the right to be presidents," Morales told his followers on Saturday as an indigenous ritual at the sacred pre-Inca ruins of Tiwanaku.

Morales, 46, was born in a hardscrabble highland village, herded llamas as a boy and saw four of his six siblings die as babies. A bachelor of modest means, he eschews the Western coat and tie in favor of a striped pullover and has cut his presidential salary in half to $1,700 a month.

"For the first time an Indian sits in the presidency and he has gone on a tour of many countries. It inspires pride in peasants like me," said Simon Alanoca, an Aymara who left the countryside to work in the indigenous city of El Alto. Read more