Evo Morales

Juan Evo Morales Ayma (born 26 October 1959) is a Bolivian politician, trade union organizer, and former cocalero activist who served as the 65th president of Bolivia from 2006 to 2019.

Widely regarded as the country's first president to come from its indigenous population, his administration worked towards the implementation of left-wing policies, focusing on the legal protections and socioeconomic conditions of Bolivia's previously marginalized indigenous population and combating the political influence of the United States and resource-extracting multinational corporations.

Morales was born in the small rural village of Isallawi in Orinoca Canton, part of western Bolivia's Oruro Department, on 26 October 1959, to an Aymara family.

One of seven children born to Dionisio Morales Choque and his wife María Ayma Mamani, only he and two siblings, Esther and Hugo, survived past childhood.

His mother almost died from a postpartum haemorrhage following his birth.

In keeping with Aymara custom, his father buried the placenta produced after his birth in a place specially chosen for the occasion.

His childhood home was a traditional adobe house, and he grew up speaking the Aymara language, although later commentators would remark that by the time he had become president he was no longer an entirely fluent speaker.

Morales' family were farmers; from an early age, he helped them to plant and harvest crops and guard their herd of llamas and sheep, taking a homemade soccer ball to amuse himself.

As a toddler, he briefly attended Orinoca's preparatory school, and at five began schooling at the single-room primary school in Isallawi.

Aged 6, he spent six months in northern Argentina with his sister and father.

There, Dionisio harvested sugar cane while Evo sold ice cream and briefly attended a Spanish-language school.

As a child, he regularly traveled on foot to Arani province in Cochabamba with his father and their llamas, a journey lasting up to two weeks, in order to exchange salt and potatoes for maize and coca.

A big fan of soccer, at age 13 he organized a community soccer team with himself as team captain.

Within two years, he was elected training coach for the whole region, and thus gained early experience in leadership.

After finishing primary education, Morales attended the Agrarian Humanistic Technical Institute of Orinoca (ITAHO), completing all but the final year.

His parents then sent him to study for a degree in Oruro; although he did poorly academically, he finished all of his courses and exams by 1977, earning money on the side as a brick-maker, day laborer, baker and a trumpet player for the Royal Imperial Band.

The latter position allowed him to travel across Bolivia.

At the end of his higher education, he failed to collect his degree certificate.

Although interested in studying journalism, he did not pursue it as a profession.

Morales served his mandatory military service in the Bolivian Army from 1977 to 1978.

Born to an Aymara family of subsistence farmers in Isallawi, Orinoca Canton, Morales undertook a basic education and mandatory military service before moving to the Chapare Province in 1978.

Growing coca and becoming a trade unionist, he rose to prominence in the campesino ("rural laborers") union.

In that capacity, he campaigned against joint U.S.–Bolivian attempts to eradicate coca as part of the War on Drugs, denouncing these as an imperialist violation of indigenous Andean culture.

His involvement in anti-government direct action protests resulted in multiple arrests.

Morales entered electoral politics in 1995, was elected to Congress in 1997 and became leader of MAS in 1998.

Coupled with populist rhetoric, he campaigned on issues affecting indigenous and poor communities, advocating land reform and more equal redistribution of money from Bolivian gas extraction.

He gained increased visibility through the Cochabamba Water War and gas conflict.

Ideologically a socialist, he has led the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party since 1998.

In 2002, he was expelled from Congress for encouraging anti-government protesters, although he came second in that year's presidential election.

Once elected president in 2005, Morales increased taxation on the hydrocarbon industry to bolster social spending and emphasized projects to combat illiteracy, poverty, and racial and gender discrimination.

Vocally criticizing neoliberalism, Morales' government moved Bolivia towards a mixed economy, reduced its dependence on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), and oversaw strong economic growth.

Scaling back United States influence in the country, he built relationships with leftist governments in the Latin American pink tide, especially Hugo Chávez's Venezuela and Fidel Castro's Cuba, and signed Bolivia into the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas.

His administration opposed the autonomist demands of Bolivia's eastern provinces, won a 2008 recall referendum, and instituted a new constitution that established Bolivia as a plurinational state.

Re-elected in 2009 and 2014, he oversaw Bolivia's admission to the Bank of the South and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, although his popularity was dented by attempts to abolish presidential term limits.

Following the disputed 2019 election and the ensuing unrest, Morales agreed to calls for his resignation.

After this temporary exile, he returned following the election of President Luis Arce.

In September 2023, Morales announced his candidacy for the 2025 Bolivian presidential election.

In December 2023, the TC disqualified Morales from participating in the 2025 Bolivian presidential elections.

Morales' supporters laud him as a champion of indigenous rights, anti-imperialism, and environmentalism, and he was credited with overseeing significant economic growth and poverty reduction as well as increased investment in schools, hospitals, and infrastructure.

Critics point to democratic backsliding during his tenure, argue that his policies sometimes failed to reflect his environmentalist and indigenous rights rhetoric, and that his defense of coca contributed to illegal cocaine production.