ELECTIONS COULD TILT LATIN AMERICA FURTHER TO THE LEFT

MOROCHATA, Bolivia - In perhaps the quirkiest, most colorful of the
many presidential campaigns gathering momentum in Latin America, Evo
Morales, the Aymara Indian leader turned congressman, arrived in this
mountain hamlet on a recent day, got out of his car a mile up the road
and strode in like a conquering hero.

The town's fathers honored him Bolivian-style, placing a heavy wreath
of potatoes, roses and green beans around his neck. Crowds of peasants
amassed behind him, while a ceremonial escort of indigenous leaders
led him across cobblestone streets to a field filled with thousands.
There, Mr. Morales gave the kind of leftist speech that increasingly
strikes a chord with Latin America's disenchanted voters, railing
against privatization, liberalized trade and other economic
prescriptions backed by the United States.

"If we win, not just Evo will be president, but the Quechua and Aymara
will also be in the presidency," Mr. Morales said, referring to
Bolivia's two largest Indian communities. "We are a danger for the
rich people who sack our resources."

Mr. Morales, 46, a former llama herder and coca farmer who has a
slight lead in the polls for the election on Dec. 18, offers what may
be the most radical vision in Latin America, much to the dismay of the
Bush administration.

But the sentiment extends beyond Bolivia. Starting on Dec. 11 in
Chile, voters in 11 countries will participate in a series of
presidential elections over the next year that could take Latin
America further to the left than it already is.

Since a bombastic army colonel, Hugo Chavez, won office in Venezuela
in 1998, three-quarters of South America has shifted to the left,
though most countries are led by pragmatic presidents like Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva in Brazil and Nestor Kirchner in Argentina.

That decisive shift has a good chance of spreading to Bolivia, Ecuador
and, for the first time in recent years, north of the Panama Canal. In
Nicaragua, the Sandinistas, led by Daniel Ortega, are positioning
themselves to win back the presidency they lost in 1990. Farther
north, in Mexico, polls show that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a
hard-charging leftist populist, may replace the business-friendly
president, Vicente Fox, who is barred from another term.

Traditional, market-friendly politicians can still win in all these
countries. But polls show a general leftward drift that could bring
policies sharply deviating from longstanding American economic
remedies like unfettered trade and privatization, better known as the
Washington Consensus.

"The left is contesting in a very practical way for political power,"
said Jim Shultz, executive director of Democracy Center, a policy
analysis group in Bolivia. "There's a common thread that runs through
Lula and Kirchner and Chavez and Evo, and the left in Chile to a
certain degree, and that thread is a popular challenge to the market
fundamentalism of the Washington Consensus."

The shift has not been as striking as might by preferred by leaders
like Mr. Chavez, whose open antagonism toward the United States is
rare. Presidents like Mr. da Silva and Tabare Vazquez in Uruguay
practice the kind of fiscal restraints accepted by Wall Street.

Still, the prospects for a further turn to the left could signal a
broad, popular distancing from the Bush administration, whose focus on
fighting drugs and advocating for regional free trade have failed to
generate much backing.

While the Bush administration may be pleased that its most trusted and
important ally in Latin America, President Alvaro Uribe in Colombia,
will probably win re-election in May, Washington's most fervent
adversary, Mr. Chavez, is also expected to cruise to victory late next
year.

And the left may mount a strong challenge in market-friendly Peru.
There, a fiery nationalistic cashiered army officer, Ollanta Humala,
who compares himself to Mr. Chavez, is now second in the polls to a
conservative congresswoman.

No one, though, quite offers the up-by-the-bootstraps story that Mr.
Morales does. He grew up poor in the frigid highlands. Four of his six
siblings died young, he said. When the mining industry went bust, the
family moved to Bolivia's coca-growing heartland, where Mr. Morales
made his mark as a leader of the coca farmers, who cultivate a shiny
green leaf that is the main component used to make cocaine.

That made him a pariah to the United States, which has bankrolled the
army's effort to eradicate the crop. But under Mr. Morales's
leadership, the cocaleros have fought back, paralyzing the country
with road blockades and playing a role in uprisings that toppled two
presidents in 20 months.

Now, Mr. Morales travels Bolivia's pockmarked mountain roads in a
relentless campaign, blasting Andean music that heralds him ("We feel
it, we feel it, Evo presidente," goes a standard line).

"One thing few people realize is how good a politician this man is,"
said Eduardo Gamarra, a professor at Florida International University
in Miami. "Evo has a tremendous political structure that he's built up
over the last 20 years."

Mr. Morales vows to veer Bolivia away from liberalized trade and
privatizations that have marked the country's economy for a
generation, tapping into the discontent of voters upset that market
reforms did little to improve their lives.

Michael Shifter, who tracks Latin American campaigns for the
Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue, said, "Evo is the expression
of that frustration, that resentment and the search for answers."

In interviews on the campaign trail, Mr. Morales complained that open
borders had brought in cheap potatoes from Argentina. He offers a
range of solutions, like loans to microbusinesses and the formation of
more cooperatives. He also says his government will demand a bigger
take from the foreign corporations developing Bolivia's large natural
gas reserves.

Mr. Morales seems to relish talking about the United States, noting
that criticisms from American officials have helped his popularity in
an increasingly nationalistic country. Mr. Morales, who is close to
Mr. Chavez and has called Fidel Castro's Cuba a model, says he will
reject American-imposed economic principles and policies like the
eradication of coca. "The policies of the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund, under the direction of the United States
government, which concentrate capital in few hands, is not a
solution," he said. "Western development is the development of death."

Such talk resonates with people like Herminio Lopez, a leader in the
hamlet of Piusilla. "We are sure he will not defraud or fool us, like
all the others," he said. "Eighty percent of us are poor, and for us
to have someone like him makes us proud."

Mr. Morales knows well what appeals to his supporters. Aside from an
economic transformation, he promises symbolic proposals like changing
the Bolivian flag to include elements of the indigenous flag of the
Andes.

"This moment is not just for Evo Morales," Mr. Morales told the crowd
here in Morochata. "It is for all of us."