Political parties are the primary link between state and society in modern democracies. The quality of representation secured through parties and the responsiveness of party systems to the interests and demands of organized groups has a significant impact on the quality and the stability of democratic institutions. For that reason, one of the most enduring questions in political science is how social cleavages and collective interests are translated into party systems. In multiethnic societies, ethnic cleavages are likely to generate political parties and to organize political competition (Harmel and Robertson 1985: 503; Horowitz 1985: 291–3). Yet prior to the 1990s, there were few political parties in Latin America organized around ethnic identity, despite the ethnic diversity of the region. In the rare cases these existed they did not achieve enduring electoral success and had little impact on the political party system or the representation of their constituency in formal politics (Stavenhagen 1992: 434).

In the 1990s, at the same time that many Latin American party systems began to exhibit severe stress and decomposition, indigenous social movement organizations increased their level of political mobilization and, in some cases, formed political parties. Indigenous peoples are the descendants of the peoples and cultures existing in the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans, who seek to preserve contemporary forms of these cultures within particular territories, while exercising considerable powers of self-government. Some of the new parties that indigenous peoples' organizations formed in the 1990s achieved impressive results in a short period of time.