Municipal officials in Bolivia's 10 biggest cities have already resigned from their posts in order to plunge into the campaign for the elections.

Previously, only political parties could present candidates, but that has changed. According to political analysts, the most popular aspirants for political offices in all regions of Bolivia, where indigenous people form a majority of the population, are those who have earned respect as civic or community leaders.

The new context in which candidates will dispute the 327 mayor's offices weakens the traditional parties that are losing influential supporters due to the growing strength of grassroots organisations, which offer an alternative to an electorate that hopes for substantial changes in the conduct of elected officials.

Since 1994, public funds are directly transferred to more than 300 municipal governments in Bolivia. But in the end, the promising experiment in democratising decision-making on public spending led to serious complaints of poor administration and mismanagement in a number of districts.

Several cases even ended in violence. The mayor of the Andean highland town of Ayo Ayo, Benjamín Altamirano, was murdered by an enraged mob of local residents complaining that their denunciations of corruption among local officials had been ignored.

But Saravia warned that the candidates of citizen organisations and indigenous groups often represent specific interests or sectors of society, and could lose sight of the bigger picture, thus jeopardising the goal of democratic representation.

The campaign for the elections, in which 4.2 million voters (out of a total population of 9.2 million) will be eligible to take part, will be intense in the nine provincial capitals and the sprawling slum city of El Alto, which is home to nearly 600,000 people and is located next to La Paz.

El Alto was the scene of violent clashes between protesters and the security forces when army troops were called out a year ago to quash massive demonstrations against plans to export natural gas through Chile, with which Bolivia has a tense relationship.

The month-long protests in September and October 2003 led to the resignation of then president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (2002-2003).

In El Alto, Mayor José Luis Paredes, a former member of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left, has founded a new party, Plan Progress.

He hopes to be re-elected on the strength of his achievements in office, which have included improvements in urban infrastructure, although dissatisfaction with public services -- or lack thereof -- has grown apace with the continued rural exodus, which swells shantytowns and areas like El Alto.

A few kilometres away, in the administrative capital, La Paz, the leading candidate is Mayor Juan del Granado, the head of the Movement Without Fear.

In 1989, del Granado, who is a lawyer, got former dictator Luis García Meza (1980-1981) convicted and sentenced. The former general is now serving 30 years in the Chonchocoro maximum security prison.

A defender of human rights when he served as a legislator, and a tireless advocate of accountability and oversight, del Granado cleaned up the city government of La Paz and fought corruption. He also implemented major projects in the city.

In the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba, Mayor Rocío Luque is running for election to the city council, representing the New Republican Force of centre-right Manfred Reyes Villa, a former presidential candidate.

The mayor of the central Bolivian city Santa Cruz, Roberto Fernández, resigned from office and abandoned the Civic Solidarity Union party that he inherited from his late father, Max Fernández, and is now standing for the Unity for Santa Cruz civic organisation.

In southeastern Bolivia, in the city of Potosí, the "working-class mayor" René Joaquino has also handed in his resignation, and hopes to be re-elected after a term in which he increased participation by local residents in municipal decision-making.

An admirer of the thinking of legendary Argentine-Cuban guerrilla Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Joaquino is busy organising a citizens movement, the Social Alliance, and hopes to repeat his earlier triumph, when he represented the Socialist Party.

In Sucre, Bolivia's legal capital, Mayor Aideé Nava will announce her candidature at the head of the Free Bolivia Movement, while in the city of Tarija in the south, Mayor Oscar Montes is running for re-election with the support of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left.

In the northern city of Cobija, the capital of the department (province) of Pando, Miguel Becerra has left the mayor's office to run for re-election at the head of his Amazon Democratic Renovation Movement.

The mayors of the cities of Trinidad and Oruro, Moisés Shiriqui and Edgar Bazán, are also preparing for the elections with the backing of citizens organisations.