Evo Morales

Juan Evo Morales Ayma (born 26 October 1959) led Bolivia for nearly fourteen years as head of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party. An Aymara former llama herder and coca-growers' union (cocalero) organizer from the Chapare region, Morales rose to national prominence in the 1990s opposing U.S.-backed coca eradication programs. He won the December 2005 presidential election outright in the first round, taking office in January 2006 as Bolivia's first president of Indigenous descent.

His government nationalized the hydrocarbons sector in May 2006, redirecting gas revenues toward social programs, and oversaw the drafting of a new constitution approved by referendum in January 2009, which redefined Bolivia as a "plurinational state." During his tenure, Bolivia recorded significant reductions in extreme poverty and sustained GDP growth driven largely by commodity exports. He was re-elected in 2009 and 2014.

Morales pursued a controversial path to a fourth term: after losing a February 2016 referendum that would have lifted term limits, the Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal ruled in 2017 that term limits violated his political rights, allowing him to run again. The October 2019 election triggered a crisis when the OAS audit reported irregularities in the vote count. Amid protests and after the military "suggested" he step down, Morales resigned on 10 November 2019 and went into exile, first in Mexico and then Argentina. He has called the events a coup; critics describe his departure as the consequence of attempted electoral manipulation.

He returned to Bolivia in November 2020 after MAS candidate Luis Arce won the presidency. Morales has since broken publicly with Arce, and the two have competed for control of MAS. In 2023 the Constitutional Court ruled that indefinite re-election is not a human right, complicating his political comeback ambitions.