Hello everybody, we're back. Welcome to this special bonus episode and as promised, I am joined now by journalist Ali Vargas. Ali, how's it going?

Very good. Very jubilant atmosphere, obviously here in Bolivia. And yeah, thanks for having me on.

I was going to ask you, where are you calling in from?

At the moment, I'm in La Paz, Bolivia.

And you said it's a jubilant atmosphere. So I mean, like, yeah, just what's the energy like in La Paz on the nation as a whole right now?

Well, Bolivia is a polarized country on class and racial lines. And in the working class, sort of urban areas such as El Alto here in La Paz, in rural areas, there's, there's street parties going on, there's, you know, huge outbursts of joy.

Whereas in the sort of center of La Paz and the centers in the big cities, there's a kind of defeated silence because here is where the sort of pro-Cuvos Carlos Mesa vote is concentrated.

And I think people here have known for a really long time, actually, that the mass is going to win, that the mass represents the majority of the indigenous people in the rural areas and in the cities.

And although they were able to seize power briefly, thanks to, to a military lecou supported by the United States, that their power was never really built on any kind of foundations.

So they've been waiting for the inevitable. And now that it's come, well, it's people being quiet. I mean, I've, you know, this yesterday I was walking around with a, with a mass heart, and which just a few weeks ago could have got you in quite a lot of trouble walking around the city center.

But now I've sort of bowed their heads and is a, is a new, a new atmosphere in this is a liberating one certainly.

So there were sort of a, like you said, we're in the mass hat around a couple weeks ago. It could have been, you know, an incitement to a little bit of, you know, intimidation or even violence.

But now it's just sort of like people don't see the point in it because it's just sort of like the game is up.

Yeah, yeah. In fact, during the Koon last year, there was a number of cases of people wearing sort of walking home or walking to a shop, let's say, and they're wearing a blue jacket, which is the color of the mass.

And then get salted, they get beaten up by these sort of right-wing protesters. They're like, oh, useful to the mass.

Some of these people wearing, I think there's one case of a man wearing a, a, a Pepsi jacket that had the Pepsi logo on and it was blue.

They thought that he was, you know, a communist.

Well, it's probably representatives of the Coca-Cola company.

Actually, as long as we're speaking about cool jackets, I saw a photo of Luis Arce wearing one of the coolest jackets I think I've ever heard.

I've ever, I've ever seen. And you know what I'm talking about? It's got this like really cool embroidery on the back and the guy with a flag.

What's the deal with that jacket? Where can I get one?

No, well, you have to become loved by the certain indigenous communities and I'll make it one for you.

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