As to majors: just a few years ago, the dominating party (the party who won the national elections) would put into place major from their party. This still happens with prefectos (the equivalent of state governors), but majors are now elected separately in each city; therefore, it will happen that the majors in different city are from different political parties.

It is interesting to note that our current president, the historian Carlos Mesa, is not affiliated with any political party. He joined forces with Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada ("Goni"), and as a result, he became the vice-president - but it seems that he remained independent of Goni's party (MNR).

>Well, one thing that is specific to the U.S. is the "two-party-system". I know, I know, other parties are allowed, and exist, but in actual practice, it turns out that one of the two major parties will be the winner.
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>Here in Bolivia, in any election we have anywhere between 8-15 parties participating (that is just a quick estimate). Often, no single party gets over 20% or 30% of the total ballots. In that case, Congress will decide between the 2 - or was it 3 - parties which have the highest number of votes. In practice, of course, this means: alliances.
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>>I'm doing a little information gathering here.
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>>In America there are elections every two years, I know that.
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>>But what about the rest of the world? If you live in a democractic country other than the USA, when are your next elections? Are there any aspects of your democractic process that differ from us in the USA that would also be helpful to know?
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>>Thanks.