DEAL STRUCK OVER BOLIVIAN PRESIDENCY

Bolivia's leading presidential candidate, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozado, has
all but secured the presidency after cutting a deal with his long-term
leftist rival Jaime Paz Zamora.

Mr Sanchez de Lozado narrowly won the elections last month, but he failed
to win enough support to avoid a Congressional vote to choose the president
on 3 August.

Congress will be choosing between the free marketeer, Mr Sanchez de Lozado,
and Evo Morales, a rank outsider at the beginning of the campaign who
managed to come within a whisker of winning.

Mr Morales grows coca, the raw material for cocaine, and he campaigned on a
promise to restore traditional production of the crop and to reverse the
free market reforms of the past decade.

But now, Mr Sanchez de Lozado has managed to form a coalition with another
former president, Mr Paz Zamora.

That virtually guarantees Mr Sanchez de Lozado enough Congressional support
to win the crucial vote and the presidency.

But the unexpected surge of support for the coca grower means that the new
government will not be able to shove aside him or his followers, who blame
10 years of IMF-inspired economic policies for leaving them in poverty.

There are plenty of economists who insist that free market reforms have
helped Bolivia and protected it from an even deeper mess.

But the fact is that there is now very little public faith in those ideas,
and plenty of support for critics like Mr Morales.

He might not be president but he cannot be ignored.