Online Extra: Q&A with Bolivian President Mesa

On the job less than a year, he talks at length about the huge challenges ahead, economic, political, and cultural

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July 5, 2004 at 4:00 AM UTC

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In the streets surrounding the Palacio Quemado, Bolivia's presidential palace, hundreds of striking public school teachers marched through the city center, demanding not only salary hikes but nationalization of the foreign-run oil and gas industry. But Bolivian President Carlos Mesa, 50, seemed unruffled in his understated but elegant offices inside the palace.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Bolivia suffered revolving-door military coups d'etat but returned to democracy in 1985. The country then underwent free-market economic reforms that conquered hyperinflation, cleaned up public finances, and privatized much of the economy.