In late 2005, Bolivia entered "a new period in the country’s history." In the only country in the western hemisphere in which most of the population identifies itself as indigenous, the first indigenous head of state was elected on Dec. 18, 2005. Evo Morales and the Movimiento al Socialsmo (MAS) coalition, in winning an unprecedented absolute majority in the presidential and legislative elections, came to power after half a decade of battling U.S.-backed privatization and coca eradication programs.

Morales was born in 1959 and had been an advocate of coca-growers organizations since his teenage years.  His vice-president Álvaro García Linera, essentially an advocate for Bolivia’s indigenous, rural, and working-class social movements, is only in his early forties, but has had an active political life.  Radicalized in high school and as a college student in Mexico City in the mid-1980s, García was involved in the Central American solidarity campaigns against Reagan-backed counter-insurgencies and was imprisoned for his involvement in an indigenous-led guerilla force after his return to Bolivia.

Morales’ and García’s coalition of personalist factions, the MAS, was formed to represent the coca-growers of central northwest Bolivia, at the base of the highlands, in the 1998 elections; Morales exercises "unquestioned authority" in the coalition.  The MAS emerged on the national stage in 2002 when Morales, then the coca-growers’ charismatic union leader, narrowly lost his presidential bid.  In his loss, however, the MAS became the second largest grouping in the Chamber of Deputies.  
The 2005 victory came on a platform of nationalization of Bolivia’s resources (mineral and hydrocarbon deposits) as well as crafting more representative political institutions.

Written before his election as vice president, García elaborated and specified on what he saw as a “profound state crisis” in Bolivia.  García viewed the social framework of the country as follows: the most promising social movements for change (political, economic, and social) have an indigenous base, and emanate from agrarian regions of the country that have been excluded or marginalized by the processes of economic modernization. This movement, composed of rural peasants and urban workers, favors an economic program focused on internal markets, an increased role for the state as a producer and industrializing force, and a central role for the Bolivian indigenous majority in shaping a new country. This massive uprising has left the opposition, an elite coalition of right-wing financiers, business, and agro-exporters who favor private enterprise over the state and fight for the status quo, fatigued and internally conflicted.

García’s subtle analysis proved accurate with the MAS victory in December.  More recently, on May 1 with Morales’ natural resource nationalization decree, three key companies that together control the heart of the country’s energy industry will shift a 51 percent stake to the government’s petroleum company.  The state is also taking over, from Brazil’s Pertrobras, two of the country’s main refineries; roughly twenty other foreign companies will not be affected.

Beyond gas, Morales has not reneged on his commitment to indigenous needs, especially issues relating to land distribution. In early June he handed over more than 9,000 square miles of state land to poor indigenous Bolivians. This "agrarian revolution", according to Morales, means getting back the land and "getting back all the natural resources." The Indians of Bolivia are understandable sanguine about the recent land policies of the MAS. "The greatest need now," says an indigenous leader, "is the recuperation of our territory. The landowners, the foreign companies, the political parties that have dominated this country took our land from us and that’s why we live in misery."

According to the government, 90 percent of Bolivia’s productive land is worked by only 50,000 families, leaving millions with little or no land. Much of the confiscated and parceled-out land is uncultivated and located in the fertile lowlands of eastern Bolivia. The government’s role outside of redistribution and land reform will be to ensure sustainable land management and the protection of forests and natural areas.  According to Bolivia’s vice-minister of land, the proposed redistribution areas are lands that have “no legal problems … and we believe that…its going to help many poor people that have been waiting and need this land to improve their life.”

Morales’ plan of distributing 77,000 square miles of public land in the next five years has some agribusiness leaders upset.  Many right-wing, large-scale ranchers in eastern Bolivia can deal with Morales’ less-than-radical nationalization policies, but are hostile to his proposed land reforms. Several Santa Cruz-based political leaders have openly spoken of resistance to the state’s land policies.  "Land reform could lead to civil war," says one rancher. According to Christian Perenti, a journalist familiar with Bolivia’s politics and social forces, this is all the MAS can ask for at this time: "a less parasitic, less volatile, fairer version of market economics."

Jason McCollum is a graduate student studying history. He also plays music with a local band, Brown Julius.