Alvaro Colom has been sworn in as Guatemala’s first leftist president in more than 50 years, according to Central American Daily.
He has promised to fight poverty in a nation where half the people live on less than $1 a day.
– Today is the beginning of privileges for the poor, the beginning of privileges for those without opportunities, Colom said at the ceremony.
KÆMPE OPGAVE
Colom, an industrial engineer, has promised a broad social agenda.
It includes building schools and medical centres, creating jobs, and bringing security to a country where gangs behead victims and drug traffickers control much of the police forces.
Colom has recognised his job won’t be easy. Half of Guatemala’s 13 million people live on less than $1 a day, and discrimination against the ethnic Mayan majority is rampant.
NOK SOCIALIST, MEN ….
Despite his ideology, Guatemala’s new leader said he doesn’t want to be identified with other leftist governments in Latin America, including that of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president.
Colom has said each country must “find its own path”, and that he won’t accept Venezuela’s offer of oil for preferential terms until he has consulted with his country’s business elite.
