Morales was born into the Aymara indigenous ethnic group in the Andean highlands, a group of people who tend to back roads, industry and economic development, said Tegel. But indigenous populations in the tropical part of the country, generally speaking, don’t want that, he said. “They want to a certain degree to be left alone. That doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t want economic development, but they want a different model and they want it done much more at a community level.” Economics is a huge issue in Bolivia — one of the poorest countries in Latin America — and a major driver in policy decisions, Tegel said. “That tension between his indigenous and environmental discourse and some of the projects he actually wants to do, including increasing mining in the country, is at the very least a paradox and something his critics are calling hypocritical.”

Long a part of indigenous culture in which the leaf had been chewed or brewed in teas, coca cultivation is legal — though controlled — in Bolivia. President Evo Morales, himself once a leader of coca growers, has championed its cause, leading the United Nations to acknowledge his country’s right to allow its traditional use.

he Inca requirements of public service did not much disturb the traditional Quechua way of life. When the Spanish conquered the Inca empire in the 16th century, however, and the Quechua came under Spanish rule, Quechua society was drastically altered. The Spanish encomienda system of tribute required the Quechua to produce unfamiliar crops for the Spanish at the expense of their own food supply. The Spanish system, unlike its Inca predecessor, did not provide for the welfare of the labourer and his family during his term of forced labour.

Mr. Morales is also the first indigenous president of Bolivia, where 48 percent of the population declared themselves indigenous in the last census, and his government has proven itself adept at reconciling ancestral knowledge with economic modernization.

EV: Decolonization means a lot to me, it means recuperating… our own path, something which we’ve been forced to lose, this [indigenous] path, this wisdom, this knowledge has been devalued, minimized as though it weren’t knowledge at all. And so now we are recuperated this, and we’re doing so in our own way. This for us is decolonization, a process which is done via the state but also via the social organizations, because this is an issue of how to organize, how to speak of our ancestral technologies. Yes, many things have been modernized, but in many cases we have a necessity to recuperate our own principles and values as indigenous peoples. 

Don't go against the natural world, natural law, go with Mother Earth. She has a certain way of doing things and when you start going against that there are no penalties or fines, there's only consequences when you go against natural law," Morales said.

Morales, the longest-serving president in South America, benefits from a fractured opposition that has failed to rally behind a single leader.

Bolivia has long been associated with poverty. But the tide is turning, and buildings constructed in the style of the 'New Andean architecture' are an increasingly visible sign of that change. The FT's Andres Schipani reports.

President Evo Morales’s backers are seeking to amend Bolivia’s Constitution so he can run for re-election in 2020. A plan finalized Tuesday night comes just eight months after Mr. Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, won a third term. He first took office in 2006. Mr. Morales’s supporters control the two-thirds of Congress needed to pass such legislation. After that, voters would decide in a referendum. Gustavo Aliaga, the farmworkers union leader, said Wednesday that the bill would be sent to Congress next week. Mr. Morales, an Aymara Indian who was born into poverty, is a leftist who has often clashed with the United States. Former President Jorge Quiroga said allowing another term would create a monarchy.

"I would also say, and here I wish to be quite clear, as was St. John Paul II: I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offenses of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America," he said to applause from the crowd.