U.S. ENVOY CRITICIZED IN MESSY AFTERMATH OF BOLIVIAN VOTE

LA PAZ, Bolivia -- The election to pick this Andean nation's next president
has devolved into a morass of accusations and conspiracy theories, with an
American diplomat and a former coca farmer at the center of the controversy.

Did U.S. Ambassador Manuel Rocha shape the outcome of the election by
publicly attacking a leftist candidate who is critical of U.S. foreign
policy. Three of the top four vote-getters in Sunday's election seem to
think so.

After six days of vote counting, nearly complete official returns Friday
left the race a virtual three-way tie. Bolivia's Congress will meet Aug. 6
to choose the next president from the top two vote-getters. Gonzalo Sanchez
de Lozada, the center-right candidate who served as president from 1993 to
1997, appeared likely to win, despite having garnered just 22.5% of the
vote as of Friday evening.

But Evo Morales, the Aymara Indian and former coca farmer who founded the
Movement Toward Socialism, could also be a big winner. Long an opponent of
U.S.-backed efforts to eliminate the farming of coca leaves--used, among
other things, to make cocaine--Morales is now poised to become the leader
of the largest opposition party in Congress.

All 157 seats in both houses of Congress were at stake in the election.
Morales' party won seven seats in the 27-member Senate and 26 seats in the
130-member Chamber of Deputies, making the Movement Toward Socialism the
second-largest party in both houses of Congress, behind the Nationalist
Revolutionary Movement, or MNR, of Sanchez de Lozada.

"I am happy. There is enormous satisfaction, above all for the people, the
people who are discriminated against," said Morales, best known for
organizing coca farmers in the region around Cochabamba in central Bolivia.
"The people have voted against any further eradication of coca, not only in
Cochabamba but in all Bolivia."

Morales and his followers say that coca is a traditional crop used for home
remedies and that the farmers who grow it would go broke if forced to grow
something else. Most analysts here say support for Morales grew--from 4% in
polls earlier this year to 20.8% in Sunday's election--thanks in large
measure to Rocha's repeated attacks on the coca growers.

Just days before the vote, Rocha suggested that a Morales victory would
mean the end of U.S. aid.

"The Bolivian electorate must consider the consequences of choosing leaders
somehow connected with drug trafficking and terrorism," he said in a speech
in the rural region of Chapare on June 26.

To many, Morales became a symbol of national honor in the face of "Yankee
imperialism."

Now, his strong showing has thrown the political process into turmoil. The
leaders of all the major parties have said they would not join a coalition
government with Morales. But leaders of those same parties do not seem keen
to make a deal with Sanchez de Lozada and the MNR either.

On Thursday, spokesmen for two major parties claimed that the U.S.
ambassador's statements were part of a plan to help Sanchez de Lozada win.
The ambassador, the argument went, attacked Morales to divert votes from
more centrist candidates, including the second-place finisher, Manfred
Reyes Villa, the mayor of Cochabamba, who received 20.9% of the vote.

Victor Gutierrez, a spokesman for Reyes Villa, claimed the ambassador's
statements had caused a 10% shift of votes to Morales, costing Reyes Villa
a clear victory. Reyes Villa boycotted a July 4 party at the American
Embassy in protest. Jaime Paz Zamora, of the Movement of the Revolutionary
Left, which finished fourth, called the ambassador's statements "a form of
electoral terrorism."

Morales has said that his party will not ally itself with any of the major
candidates and that his block of deputies and senators will form an
alternative legislature that will rule "from the street."

Morales is likely to find allies in at least one other party that made
strong gains in the election. The Aymara-Quechua Indian coalition led by
Felipe Quispe is projected to take eight seats in the Chamber of Deputies.

Quispe has suggested that Bolivia's impoverished Indian population might
soon launch an insurrection against a government that continues to be
dominated by descendants of Europeans.