CHALLENGE IN BOLIVIA

President-Elect Says He's Washington's 'Nightmare'

Bolivians have elected Evo Morales to be their next president. All
that remains is for rural votes to be counted and the Bolivian
Congress to declare the winner in January.

In a country of 8.5 million people, Indians are a majority. Yet Mr.
Morales will be the first Indian to be elected president in Bolivia's
180-year history.

Mr. Morales is a coca farmer. Coca eradication has been part of the
U.S.-led war on drugs. Yet Bolivians have chewed on the plant to ease
hunger and used it as a medicine for thousands of years.

The hallmark of Mr. Morales' campaign was his opposition to the
eradication program leading fellow growers in the fight against coca
eradication. He motivated Indian organizations, upset by poverty and
alienated politically, to form a broad movement on his behalf.

Washington has a legitimate interest in the coca issue, since Bolivia
is the No. 3 supplier of cocaine to the United States, behind Colombia
and Peru. Mr. Morales said he would work with the United States to end
drug trafficking, but he wants to expand coca production.

The president to be has also described himself as the U.S.
government's "nightmare" and called President Bush a
"terrorist."

It will be interesting to see whether the Morales government and the
Bush administration can work together. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice said that relations will depend on the "behavior" of Bolivia's