Evo Morales, the first indigenous President of Bolivia, was elected to office in 2005 with 53% of the vote. His platform was to reclaim the country’s natural resources for Bolivians, and strengthen the rights of the country’s impoverished indigenous majority, workers and women. He was reelected in 2009 with 63% of the vote.<\/p>\n

In his first term, Morales introduced the concept of the buen vivir<\/em> or \u201cLiving Well\u201d into Bolivia\u2019s discourse. His argument was that the western world was based on material accumulation, and this led to economic policies that were destroying the planet. Rather than trying to \u201clive better,\u201d he said our goal should be to \u201clive well.\u201d His suggestion has taken the Indigenous world by storm and now is a common theme in Indigenous summits. It has also been incorporated into the new Ecuadorian constitution and adopted by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Other countries as far flung as Norway and Spain have shown an interest in what is going on in Bolivia.<\/p>\n

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