FACTBOX: Key facts about Bolivia's Evo Morales

Thu Aug 7, 2008 10:47am EDT
 
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LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivian President Evo Morales is expected to survive a recall vote on Sunday, which stems from a bitter power struggle with a group of governors who are fighting for more autonomy for their provinces.

In two-and-a-half years in office, Morales has tightened state control over the energy, mining and telecommunications sectors. But opposition governors have blocked his ambitious land reform plans and his bid to rewrite the constitution.

Here are some key facts about Morales:

* Morales, 48, comes from a poor Aymara Indian family. He herded llamas in the Andean plateau as a boy and never finished high school. He has said four of his six siblings died young.

* When a severe drought hit in the early 1980s, Morales and his family moved to Bolivia's coca-growing region, where a decade later he emerged as the leader of the coca farmers' union, launching his political career.

* Morales' rise to power goes hand in hand with the political awakening of Quechua and Aymara Indians, who make up a majority of the population. He became the country's first president of indigenous descent after winning an election landslide in late 2005.

* He is a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy and has forged a strong ideological alliance with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro, to whom he often refers in reverential terms.

* Morales wants to rewrite Bolivia's constitution to give more power to Indian groups, who he says have been oppressed for centuries by the largely white, European-descended elite.

* Morales is known for his casual dress sense. Shortly before taking office he wore a colorful striped sweater at meetings with foreign leaders and often wears tennis shoes at public events.

* He has pledged to go back to farming coca bushes in the steamy Chapare region if he loses the recall vote.

(Reporting by Eduardo Garcia; Editing by Kieran Murray)

 

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