US-educated millionaire Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada has already served one term as president in the mid-1990s.

He won Sunday's vote by 84 votes to 43 against Evo Morales, a socialist who has the backing of the country's coca growers.

Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada won a clear victory

The two men won the largest share of the votes in a national election in June, but neither won an absolute majority, thus leading to the Congressional vote.

The session lasted through Saturday night and all of Sunday, as each of the deputies made impassioned speeches in support of the candidate they favoured.

Some made their speeches in Spanish but many spoke in Quechua, Aymara or Guarani.

Many speeches accused the mainstream parties of corruption, selling out to big business and multi-national corporations and doing nothing to end the poverty of the majority of the population.

Many of the speakers also defended the right of Bolivians to grow coca. They call it the sacred plant because it has been part of their culture since pre-Incan times.

Coca is not cocaine, said one.

Mr Morales was accused by the US ambassador in La Paz of being a drug dealer because he led the coca growers' resistance to a US-backed plan to eradicate the coca plantations.