MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mandela and indigenous leaders in Morales guest list

Former South African president Nelson Mandela, Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Argentine picketers and other social movement leaders from the continent figure in the guest list for the taking office ceremony of Bolivian elected president Evo Morales next January 22.

Mr. Morales has told caretaker president Eduardo Rodriguez that besides the presidents from Mercosur members and other neighbouring countries, the ceremony must include "social" leaders such as representatives from the Brazilian peasants "Landless movement", the Council of Indian nations or Pachakuti from Ecuador and the Venezuelan Bolivarian Movement.

Other distinguished guests include Nobel Peace prizes, Argentine Adolfo Perez Esquivel and Guatemala's Rigoberta Menchú.

Among the confirmed presidents figure Argentina's Nestor Kirchner; Brazil's Lula da Silva; Peru's Alejandro Toledo; Paraguay's Nicanor Duarte plus leaders from Chile, Venezuela, Cuba, Uruguay and the heir of the Spanish throne Prince Felipe de Asturias.

The Bolivian Electoral Board unofficially has advanced that Mr. Morales won by a landslide 54% of the vote last December 18, the highest since Bolivia recovered democracy in 1982.

Mr. Morales' transition team preparing to take office advanced that the incoming president plans to symbolically repeal the decree which two decades opened the way for the privatization of Bolivia's government owned companies.

However Mr. Carlos Villegas, Morales main financial advisor and future Economy minister said the decision will "not have retroactive effects", but will represent a strong symbolic effect for the future "impeding the looting of Bolivia's natural resources".

Mr. Villegas economic program is seen as a 180 degrees turn from the system implemented by the first Bolivian democratically elected president in 1982, Victor Paz Estensoro, following decades of military coups and rulers.

Paz Estensoro's 1982 decision helped wipe out a 25.000% hyperinflation but also meant the sacking of over 30.000 tin miners and left the Bolivian government virtually out of all economic activities.