On the Right

TAKING his oath of office in La Paz, the flamboyant new president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, railed against the exploiters of his country. In his fiery campaign he had said that the government had done nothing for Bolivia “in the last 50 years.” The country itself is 500 years old, and “we are here to change history.”

At one point in the late Fifties, Bolivia registered its 48th coup d’état since the Second World War. As a magazine editor, I proposed to my colleagues that we counsel the new government to set a date to celebrate the 50th coup d’état. But the following coup had a long life under a military government, and the return to democracy didn’t happen until 1982. But the Morales administration is deadly serious about a very different future for Bolivia. Evo (as in “Evo, Evo, Evo!”- the cry that greeted him from fellow parliamentarians when he took office) heads up a party called Movement Towards Socialism (MAS). He himself received 54 percent of the vote in December’s election, and his party won the lower house of parliament outright, and effective control of the upper house. This gives Morales, he believes, the power to change history by rejecting “neoliberalism” and “imperialism” and corruption.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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TAKING his oath of office in La Paz, the flamboyant new president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, railed against the exploiters of his country. In his fiery campaign he had said that the government had done nothing for Bolivia “in the last 50 years.” The country itself is 500 years old, and “we are here to change history.”

At one point in the late Fifties, Bolivia registered its 48th coup d’état since the Second World War. As a magazine editor, I proposed to my colleagues that we counsel the new government to set a date to celebrate the 50th coup d’état. But the following coup had a long life under a military government, and the return to democracy didn’t happen until 1982. But the Morales administration is deadly serious about a very different future for Bolivia. Evo (as in “Evo, Evo, Evo!”- the cry that greeted him from fellow parliamentarians when he took office) heads up a party called Movement Towards Socialism (MAS). He himself received 54 percent of the vote in December’s election, and his party won the lower house of parliament outright, and effective control of the upper house. This gives Morales, he believes, the power to change history by rejecting “neoliberalism” and “imperialism” and corruption.