Juan Evo Morales Ayma (; born October 26, 1959) is a Bolivian politician and former cocalero activist. He 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. Ideologically a socialist, he is the head of the Movement for Socialism party.
About Evo Morales in brief
Juan Evo Morales Ayma (; born October 26, 1959) is a Bolivian politician and former cocalero activist. He 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 is the head of the Movement for Socialism party. Morales’ government moved Bolivia towards a mixed economy, reduced its dependence on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and oversaw strong economic growth. He has faced accusations that his defence of coca contributed to illegal cocaine production and that his calls for domestic protest represented sedition and terrorism. Morales agreed to calls for his resignation after the disputed 2019 general election and the ensuing unrest, after which he went into temporary exile. He is now living in exile in the United Arab Emirates, where he has been accused of corruption and human rights abuses. He was elected to Congress in 1997 and became the leader of the MAS in 2005. He won a 2008 recall referendum, and instituted a new constitution that established Bolivia as a plurinational state. He built relationships with leftist governments in the Latin American pink tide, especially Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela and Fidel Castro’s Cuba. He also signed Bolivia into the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas. 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 a family from the indigenous Aymara people.
His mother almost died from a postpartum haemorrhage following his birth. 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 Aym Mara language. As a child, he helped them to plant and harvest crops and guard their herd of llamas and sheep, taking a homemade soccer ball to amuse himself. After finishing primary education, he attended the Agrarian Institute of Humanistic Technical Technical College in Oinoca, although he did not study for a degree. He regularly attended a Spanish-language school and briefly attended a school in Arani, Cochabamba province. His parents sent him to Argentina to visit his sister and sister-in-law, but he never made it past the first year of high school. He went on to complete a basic education before mandatory military service, moving to the Chapare Province in 1978. In 2002, he was expelled from Congress for encouraging anti-government protesters, though he came second in that year’s presidential election. 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. He has been lauded as a champion of indigenous rights, anti-imperialism, and environmentalism, as well as credited with achieving large amounts of economic growth and poverty reduction.
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This page is based on the article Evo Morales published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 24, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
