Evo Morales

Juan Evo Morales Ayma (Spanish: [xwan ˈeβo moˈɾales ˈajma]; born 26 October 1959) is a Bolivian politician, trade union organizer, and former cocalero 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 safeguarding the legal rights and improving the socioeconomic conditions of Bolivia's previously marginalized indigenous majority and combating the political influence of the United States and resource-extracting multinational corporations. Ideologically a socialist, he led the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party from 1998 to 2024.

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 in 1978. Growing coca and becoming a trade unionist, he rose to prominence in the campesino ("rural laborer") 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. 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 the Gas War. In 2002, he was expelled from Congress for encouraging anti-government protests, 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 South American pink tide, especially Hugo Chávez's Venezuela and Fidel Castro's Cuba, and signed Bolivia into the ALBA. 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 CELAC. Morales' popularity was dented by attempts to abolish presidential term limits and disregard for a referendum rejecting a fourth term for Morales. Morales won the disputed 2019 election, but amid allegations of electoral fraud and the ensuing unrest, Morales agreed to calls for his resignation. He left Bolivia and was granted political asylum in Mexico initially and then Argentina during the presidency of Jeanine Áñez.

He returned to Bolivia in November 2020, following the return of MAS to power upon the election of his former economic minister Luis Arce. During Arce's presidency, their relations deteriorated in the run up to the 2025 election in a power struggle for party influence and candidacy. Morales has blamed Arce for the 2024 Bolivian coup attempt (claiming it was a self-coup) and for an assassination attempt in October 2024, both of which Arce has denied. In February 2025, after MAS barred him from candidacy, Morales left the party to briefly join Front for Victory, before his membership was voided by the party and disqualified from participation in the election. The MAS would go on to face a historic defeat in the 2025 elections. Morales is permanently banned from running for presidency in future elections and also faces an arrest warrant in a statutory rape investigation on allegations of inappropriate relationships with minors.

Morales' supporters point to his championing of indigenous rights, anti-imperialism, and environmentalism, and credit him 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 defence of coca contributed to illegal cocaine production.