La Paz: Bolivian President Evo Morales was plastered in the face with a cake on his 50th birthday, shortly before giving a speech to a group of peasants. When the president was getting ready to take a bite of a birthday cake that had been prepared for him Monday, somebody - who could not be identified on the television images - smashed it into his face.

In Bolivia, this joke is common in birthday celebrations, but nobody expected that anyone would do that to Morales. The president wound up with his face, nose and mouth covered with cream and frosting from the cake. The incident took place in the highland town of Batallas during an event where Morales received the support of the Aymara people of that region for the December elections. The president on various occasions has played the same joke on other people who were celebrating birthdays and took the situation in stride with good humour, although it was clear that he was initially surprised.

The cake-in-the-face was not the only present the Bolivian leader received for his birthday, and at all the events he attended during the day people sang birthday songs for him. 

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