Juan Evo Morales Ayma (Spanish: [xwan ˈeβo moˈɾales ˈajma]; 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 focused on the implementation of leftist policies and combating the influence of the United States and multinational corporations. Ideologically a socialist, he led the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party from 1998 to 2024 and now runs the EVO Pueblo party.
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. 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 ensuing unrest, Morales resigned and went into temporary exile. Returning in 2020, he was removed as MAS leader in 2024 and formed EVO Pueblo as an alternative. He faces arrest warrants for his role in anti-government mass protests and a statutory rape investigation.
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 Native American rights rhetoric, and that his defense of coca contributed to illegal cocaine production.
Childhood, education, and military service: 1959–1978
Morales was born to an Aymara family in the village of Isallawi in Orinoca Canton, Oruro Department, on 26 October 1959. 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. His childhood home was a traditional adobe house, and he grew up speaking Aymara, although by his presidency was no longer fluent.
Morales' family were farmers and from an early age he helped raise crops and guard their llamas and sheep. Aged 5, he joined the single-room primary school in Isallawi. At age 6, he spent six months in northern Argentina with his sister and father, where he briefly attended a Spanish-language school. As a child, he regularly traveled two weeks on foot to Arani province, Cochabamba with his father to exchange salt and potatoes for maize and coca. Aged 13, he organized a community soccer team with himself as team captain. Within two years, he was elected training coach for the region.
After finishing primary education, Morales attended the Agrarian Humanistic Technical Institute of Orinoca (ITAHO), completing all but the final year. He then studied for a degree in Oruro, finishing in 1977; he had earned money on the side as a brick-maker, day laborer, baker, and trumpet player. Morales served his mandatory military service in the Bolivian Army from 1977 to 1978. Initially signed up at the Centre for Instruction of Special Troops (CITE) in Cochabamba, he was sent into the Fourth Ingavi Cavalry Regiment and stationed at the army headquarters in Bolivia's capital, La Paz. These two years were politically unstable, with five presidents and two military coups; under General David Padilla's regime, Morales was stationed as a guard at the Presidential Palace.
Early cocalero activism: 1978–1983
Following military service, Morales returned to his family, who had moved to Bolivia's eastern lowlands. Setting up home in the town of Villa 14 de Septiembre, El Chapare, the family cleared a plot of land in the forest to grow rice, fruit and later coca. The Morales family were part of a wider migration to the region, with many migrants hoping to grow coca, which was rising in price. A traditional medicinal and ritual substance in Andean culture, coca was also sold abroad as the key ingredient in cocaine.
As part of their War on Drugs, the United States encouraged Bolivia's government to eradicate coca to prevent cocaine production. Bolivian soldiers burned coca crops and often beat coca growers who challenged them. A foundational event for Morales' politicisation occurred in 1981, when soldiers accused a campesino (coca grower) of cocaine trafficking and burned him to death. Morales opposed the government's efforts and refused the US$2,500 compensation that they offered for each acre of coca eradicated. The campesinos had an ancestral cultural relationship with coca, did not want to lose their most profitable means of subsistence, and framed the issue as one of national sovereignty; activists regularly proclaimed "Long live coca! Death to the Yankees!" ("Causachun coca! Wañuchun yanquis!").
The El Chapare region remained special to Morales and he often referenced it in later speeches. Here, he learned to speak Quechua, founded a soccer team, and joined a cocalero (coca grower) trade union, being appointed local Secretary of Sports and becoming known for arranging soccer matches during meeting recesses. Becoming increasingly active in the union, from 1982 to 1983, Morales was general secretary of his local San Francisco syndicate; he temporarily retreated from union work following the 1983 death of his father.
General Secretary of the Cocalero Union: 1984–1994
From 1984 to 1991, campesinos protested against the forced eradication of coca by marching, forming roadblocks, occupying local government offices, and conducting hunger strikes. Morales was involved in this activism and in 1984 was present at a roadblock where three campesinos were killed. From 1984 to 1985, Morales served as the union's Secretary of Records, in 1985 he became General Secretary of the August Second Headquarters, and in 1988 he was elected Executive Secretary of the Federation of the Tropics. In 1989, he spoke at a one-year commemoration of the Villa Tunari massacre, in which 11 coca farmers had been killed by the Rural Area Mobile Patrol Unit (Unidad Móvil Policial para Áreas Rurales – UMOPAR). The following day, UMOPAR agents beat Morales up. In 1992, Morales made international trips to champion the cocalero cause; while he was visiting Canada he learned of his mother's death.