Condepa was, until 1999, a relatively successful populist politica party with a strong base of support among rural-urban migrants, particularly women, living in La Paz and El Alto, Bolivia. In this paper I assess the reasons for Condepa's appeal, through an examination of the link between Condepa and its power base, an extremely popular TV and radio programme. Both the programme and the political party have been successful because of their direct, and often emotional, appeal to their core constituency, focussing on issues of daily concern. They created a sense of family and community, which coalesced around the figure of Condepa's founder, Carlos Palenque
