Morales, Evo (1959–)

Juan Evo Morales Aima is a Bolivian politician and currently the president of the Bolivian Republic. Given his past as a popular activist and the revolutionary proclamations during his last campaign, he is expected to create many reforms in the country that will benefit the large masses of poor peasants. Much controversy, however, remains about his future government, since he will have to fight a fierce battle against the multinational oil and gas companies that rule the country's economy.

Morales was born on October 26, 1959, in Orinaca, a mining town in the Bolivian department of Oruro. Son of Dionisio Morales Choque and María Mamani, he is a descendant of the Aymara, an Amerindian ethnic group in South America. He liked to play soccer during his teen years and also was dedicated to studying Bolivian history, an activity that contributed to his understanding of the reasons for Bolivia's inequitable economy, the 1952 Popular Bolivian Revolution, and the present need for structural reforms.

Having gathered experience as a trade unionist, in 1985 he and other Aymara colleagues founded the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS; Movement Toward Socialism), a political party that emerged from a national rural congress. In a country with so much poverty and social inequality, MAS was founded with the commitment of being a political tool to obtain independence from multinational companies and true sovereignty over their territory.

In 1996, Morales became a caudillo (local leader) of the cocaleros (a federation of coca leaf–growing people) from the city of Chapare and began his activities as a growing opposition figure in the Bolivian political arena. In 1997, he ran for president. Although he was defeated, he was chosen as deputy for the Bolivian Chamber of Deputies. Three years later, he led a road blockade with coca-growing activists from Chapare. In 2002, he ran again for president and came in second behind Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, the neoliberal politician who had privatized the hydrocarbon industry.

In 2003, Bolivia was the scene of a massive violent protest, known as the Bolivian Gas War, against the neoliberal policies of the government, which sought to increase gas exports and internal gas prices. This proposed measure provoked much criticism and resentment among the local people and ended in a violent riot against the government. Even the local police ended up on the side of the revolutionaries. Sánchez de Lozada was forced to resign and left the country for the United States. Although Morales wasn't the leader of that movement, the cocaleros supported the movement, increasing his popularity.

In 2005, Morales ran again for president and obtained an absolute majority of the vote. With this victory, Morales became the first indigenous person to lead the nation as its head of state in the more than 500 years since the Spanish Conquest. His first measures as president have been moderate, and the partial nationalization of the gas and oil industries is planned. Although he promised many revolutionary actions during his campaigns, it remains to be seen whether he will be able to deliver on them. His dilemma is similar to that of Lula da Silva from Brazil.

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