FOR the first time since the arrival of Spanish conquistadors 500 years ago, Bolivia has a leader who comes from the country’s Indian majority.

After his election victory last month, Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian, was formally sworn in yesterday, but in the eyes of his supporters he assumed power 24 hours earlier in a ceremony at Tiwanaku, a pre-Incan site that Indians believe confers strength on visitors.

He becomes the latest left-wing President in a continent where discontent at the failure of traditional parties to tackle poverty and inequality has resulted in a sharp swing to the left in recent years.

Indians in Bolivia are among the poorest and most marginalised citizens of South America and form the majority of Señor Morales’s supporters.

The ceremony on Saturday was part folk festival, part political rally, as musicians playing Andean flutes and drums moved through a crowd carrying the flags of Señor Morales’s Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party and banners dedicated to Che Guevara.

Leaders of Bolivia’s indigenous communities watched as priests placed a traditional robe and hat on Señor Morales, symbolising their recognition of him as the leader of the country’s indigenous peoples.

In front of a crowd of thousands, Señor Morales offered flowers and wine to the Indian earth goddess Pachamama.

“Today begins a new era for the indigenous peoples of the world, a new life of justice and equality,” Señor Morales told the crowd, which included representatives of indigenous peoples from all over the Americas.

For the day of his congressional inauguration, Señor Morales wore another traditional garment, the striped alpaca sweater which rarely left his sides on his week-long diplomatic world tour. As well as the sash of office, Señor Morales received a golden medal encrusted with diamonds that Bolivia’s first Congress had made for Simón Bolivar, the independence hero who gave his name to the country that he helped to liberate from Spain.

Señor Morales promised radical economic and social change and said that he would call a constitutional assembly this year to draw up a new constitution better to reflect Bolivia’s indigenous majority.

KEY PLEDGES

Fight corruption

Times Recommends

• Rio Tinto four held as China prepares case
• Diplomats must keep heads down and trousers up
• When in Rome should one make like Berlusconi?