Evo Morales

Biography

Evo Morales was born in 1959 to an Aymara farming family in Isallawi and after basic schooling and military service moved to the Chapare region in 1978 to grow coca. He rose through the cocalero unions, becoming executive secretary of the Federation of the Tropics in 1988 and from 1996 chairing the committee of the six coca growers' federations, and was repeatedly arrested during protests against US-backed eradication.

He helped turn the union movement into a political vehicle that took over the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), which he led from the late 1990s. Elected to Congress in 1997, he was expelled in 2002 over protest violence but came second in that year's presidential race, and he won the presidency outright in December 2005.

As president from January 2006 he raised taxes on hydrocarbons, expanded social spending, oversaw strong growth and a fall in poverty, aligned Bolivia with the region's left-wing governments, and introduced a new constitution defining a plurinational state. He was re-elected in 2009 and 2014, but lost a 2016 referendum on extending term limits before courts allowed him to run again.

After the disputed 2019 election and mass protests he resigned in November 2019 and went into exile in Mexico and Argentina. He returned in 2020, was removed as MAS leader in 2024 and formed EVO Pueblo, and faces arrest warrants and a statutory rape investigation.