meet the new boss, same as the old boss

Despite his claims to the contrary, I suspect Bolivia's new president's leftist programs won't actually do much for the poor.

Five centuries of white rule in Bolivia have ended with the election of the country’s first indigenous head of state.

Evo Morales, of the Movement towards Socialism (MAS), won more than 50 per cent of the vote in Sunday’s election, far outstripping all predictions. In his unprecedented first-round victory he left his nearest rival for the presidency, the pro-US Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, more than 20 percentage points behind...

Señor Morales built his campaign on a promise to break the power of the European elite that has run Bolivia since independence from Spain in 1825 and which is seen by many as having ransacked the country’s vast mineral wealth and left its people impoverished.

Señor Morales has pledged to nationalise the country’s huge gas reserves and call a constituent assembly to write a new constitution that will reflect the indigenous majority. Ethnic Aymara and Quechua people make up a majority of the 9.3 million population.

He has also promised to ally Bolivia with other regional left-wing leaders such as Presidents Chávez of Venezuela and Castro of Cuba...

Señor Morales, who used to lead a coca-growers’ union, has promised to legalise the cultivation of coca, the primary ingredient in cocaine...

In La Paz’s middle-class neighbourhood of Sopocachi, many white voters said that they were voting for Señor Morales for the first time after losing faith in the traditional political class. “For 180 years since independence we have been governed by ‘the gentlemen’ and what did we get? Nothing!” said Gabriella Sánchez.

...and nothing is what they'll get from the communists as well.