Support evaporated'

Shift in Indigenous vote risks oblivion for Bolivia's leftist Mas

- Tiago Rogero

Mid the almost monochrome landscape of bare-brick buildings in the high-altitude Bolivian city of El Alto, taller structures painted in garish colours and mirrored glass stand out, topped with giant statues of pop culture figures such as Batman and Iron Man.

The extravagant structures are known as "cholets", a blend of chalet and cholo, the term used for people of Indigenous roots who moved to urban areas while retaining their cultural traits.

They once symbolised the rise of a new Aymara bourgeoisie that emerged during the commodities boom that fuelled the natural gas exports in the early years of Bolivia's first Indigenous president, Evo Morales. Now, however, they have become a symbol of how his leftist Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas) lost support among its base and has gone from hegemony to the brink of obliteration - with Morales on the sidelines.

After nearly 20 years of Mas government, the party's official presidential candidate, Eduardo del Castillo, won only 3.16% of the vote in Sunday's election - a whisker above the 3% threshold set by the electoral court for a party to remain eligible to stand in future.

Bolivia faces a runoff vote in October between two rightwing candidates: the senator Rodrigo Paz Pereira and the former president Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga.

Meanwhile, after winning two-thirds of Congress in past elections, preliminary estimates suggest Mas will now have only one member of the lower house and no senators.