[2] In the initial months of 1989, the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR) tried in vain to postpone the election date, arguing that the deadline for electoral registration restricted citizen participation.

The ADN joined forces with the now minuscule Christian Democrats by naming Luis Ossio as Banzer's running mate in an effort to attract other political elements.

The situation was more complex in the MNR where, after a bitter internal struggle, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, a pragmatic former Minister of Planning and Coordination and prominent entrepreneur, captured the party's nomination.

The MNR's strategy was to develop Sánchez de Lozada's image as a veteran movimientista (movement leader) to capture populist support.

The IU brought together splinter factions of the MIR, the Socialist Party-1, and the Communist Party, and it counted on the support of organized labor, especially the COB.

Palenque's move into national politics was prompted by the closing down of his television station for airing accusations made by an infamous drug trafficker, Roberto Suárez Gómez, against the Bolivian government.

To promote his candidacy, Palenque founded Conscience of the Fatherland (Conciencia de la Patria—Condepa), which grouped together a bizarre strain of disaffected leftists, populists, and nationalists who had defected from several other parties.

But the slight majority (a mere 5,815 votes) obtained by the MNR's candidate, Sánchez de Lozada, was surprising to observers, as was the unexpected victory by Palenque in La Paz Department.

First, it demonstrated that none of the major political parties had been able to attract lower middle-class and proletarian urban groups, who had flocked to el compadre; Palenque had wisely targeted marginal and displaced sectors of La Paz.

For the first time in the history of the Bolivian Congress, for example, a woman dressed in native garb would serve as a deputy for La Paz Department.