Outside of the central Andes, indigenous parties have had little success. Parties based in the indigenous movement have emerged in a number of nations, but none of these parties have won more than three percent of the national vote.

What explains the poor performance of indigenous parties elsewhere in Latin America? Why have these parties failed to catch on in the manner of the MAS and Pachakutik?

This chapter examines the performance of indigenous parties in Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua: the four Latin American countries with the largest and best-known indigenous parties outside of the central Andes. It contends that institutional factors cannot explain the meager results of indigenous parties in these countries because the institutional environment in three of these four countries was relatively favorable to such parties. As we shall see, in the 1990s Colombia and Venezuela reserved seats in the national legislature for indigenous people, and Nicaragua created an autonomous region in an area of the country with a large population of indigenous people and Afro-Latinos.