WHAT BOLIVIA RISKS

Sick of corrupt old-line political parties, tired of the U.S.-led
campaign on cocaine cultivation and angry at what they consider the
plundering of Bolivia's natural-gas wealth, Bolivians made it clear
before Sunday's presidential election that they want change. Well,
they are going to get it now.

The apparent winner, Evo Morales, is a left-wing rabble-rouser who
wants to seize control of Bolivia's natural resources from greedy
"transnationals" and decriminalize the growing of coca, the raw
material of cocaine. A former llama herder and trumpet player who now
heads a coca farmers union, Mr. Morales made his name leading the
radical street protests that have racked Bolivia. He boasts of his
affinity with Hugo Chavez, the anti-American demagogue who leads
Venezuela. He vows to "bury the neo-liberal" state and fight the evils
of capitalism.

To many Bolivians, Mr. Morales's brave talk of battling globalization
and standing up to the Americans has a satisfying ring. But his
formula of Yankee-bashing, statism and economic nationalism has been
tried before in Latin America, with disastrous results. In the 1960s
and 70s, the region's then mostly authoritarian governments took many
big industries under the state's wing and put up high barriers to
imports, hoping for home growth. Instead they got hyperinflation, debt
and stagnation. It would be madness to return to those discredited
policies now. Yet that is precisely what some Latin American
governments seem prepared to do.

Bolivia and Venezuela are not the only countries turning left. Brazil
has a left-leaning, though pragmatic, president, Luiz Inacio de Silva.
Peru has seen the rise of a former military officer, Ollanta Humala,
who hopes to follow Mr. Morales's populist road to the presidency.
Argentina's President Nestor Kirchner delights in bashing the
International Monetary Fund, while Uruguay's government has been
cozying up to the egregious Mr. Chavez.

If Bolivia continues the leftward lurch, it is bound to suffer. Mr.
Morales's threats against foreign energy companies have already hurt
the country's economic hopes, which rest on its huge gas reserves. It
needs outside help and capital to exploit them. His hostility to the
United States could hurt, too. Washington wants to negotiate a
free-trade agreement with Bolivia, as it recently did with Peru. That
would help protect the 100,000 Bolivians who work making clothing,
jewellery and other goods for export. The U.S. is also offering
hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, but only if the government
helps suppress the growing of coca. Mr. Morales defends the plant,
which he claims has many legal, traditional uses among Bolivian
Indians. An Aymara Indian himself, he held a press conference on
Sunday at which coca leaves were scattered on a Bolivian flag.

Mr. Morales says he will become Washington's "nightmare" when he takes
office. If he implements his backward promises, the nightmare will be
Bolivia's.