In the 1990s, the left exploited this opportunity to solidify their base, run for local offices and gain experience governing on the local level. At the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, the region's initial unsuccessful attempts with the neoliberal policies of privatization, cuts in social spending and foreign investment left countries with high levels of unemployment, inflation and rising inequality. This period saw increasing numbers of people working in the informal economy and suffering material insecurity, and ties between the working classes and the traditional political parties weakening, resulting in a growth of mass protest against the negative social effects of these policies, such as the "piqueteros" in Argentina, and in Bolivia indigenous and peasant movements rooted among small coca farmers, or "cocaleros", whose activism culminated in the Bolivian gas conflict of the early-to-mid 2000s. The left's social platforms, which were centered on economic change and redistributive policies, offered an attractive alternative that mobilized large sectors of the population across the region who voted leftist leaders into office.