David Choquehuanca
David Choquehuanca Céspedes (born 7 May 1961) is a Bolivian politician serving as the 39th Vice President of Bolivia since 8 November 2020. He served as the Foreign Minister of Bolivia from 23 January 2006 to 23 January 2017. He was designated the Secretary General of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) in March 2017, a position which he held until November 2019. On 19 January 2020, he was designated as the vice presidential candidate of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) in the 2020 Bolivian general election and was elected on 18 October. Early life. Choquehuanca was  born in Cota Cota Baja, a small village bordering Lake Titicaca near Huarina in the La Paz Department of Bolivia. Choquehuanca learned Aymara as his first language and later learned Spanish as well around age 7. In 1971, Choquehuanca moved to nearby Huarina to continue his secondary studies. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1980 from José Miguel Lanza General College. Choquehuanca first met future president Evo Morales at a trade union congress in 1984. In 1990, he completed a postgraduate degree in history and anthropology at the Higher University of San Andrés in La Paz. Between 2001  and 2002, he completed a higher diploma in the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at Cordillera University. Career. Choquehuanca, who is of Aymara descent, is an activist in the Aymara indigenous and campesino movement. Starting in the 1980s, he worked in support of the Unified Syndical Confederation of Rural Workers of Bolivia, through various political actions, trainings, and congresses. From 1998 to 2005, he worked as National Coordinator of the Programa Nina (meaning "fire" in Aymara), an NGO consortium that provides training to rural movement leaders. He has worked with international agencies and has been an advisor to President Evo Morales , a fellow Aymara, since before Morales's election to the Presidency. Foreign Minister (2006–2017). As Chancellor (or Minister of Foreign Affairs), Choquehuanca was considered one of the most important ministers of Morales at the time. He and Luis Arce, Minister of Economy and Finance, were the only people to serve in their cabinet posts for over a decade during Evo Morales's presidency. Observers have described Choquehuanca as the leader of a "pachamamista" or "indigenista" faction within the cabinet, counterpoised to the pragmatic developmentalism of Arce and Vice President Álvaro García Linera. Interaction with 2011 indigenous march. Choquehuanca visited the  Eighth Grand National Indigenous March twice on behalf of the government. On September 14 and 15, he conveyed the message that "We cannot change what the president has already decided" at the beginning of a long but fruitless dialogue with leaders of the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia (CIDOB) and the Subcentral TIPNIS. From September 15, the march was blockaded from advancing by a crowd of some 200 campesino and colonizers' union members at the San Lorenzo bridge of Yucumo. Between the two protests, police set up a their own blockade, preventing the march from advancing. On the  morning of September 24, Choquehuanca returned to the indigenous march. Again negotiations with the march leadership were inconclusive. A group of female marchers grabbed Choquehuanca and led him marching down the highway in an effort to circumvent the police blockade. At the police blockade, a tense standoff escalated into a brief confrontation, but the marchers succeeded in passing the police line. Several government officials, including Minister of Interior Sacha Llorenti and Minister of Transparency Nardi Suxo, said that this was a "kidnapping" ("secuestro"), but Choquehuanca steadfastly refused to label it as such saying that "the sisters and [female] comrades grabbed  me, surely they had thought that they would pass that police encirclement with the Chancellor; I was not insulted, nor mistreated, but yes, they obliged me to walk." La Paz Prosecutor Patricia Santos, who was investigating the events, received Choquehuanca's testimony to this effect on 21 November. In February 2012, the Prosecutor's Office subpoenaed twenty-six leaders of the indigenous movement and its allies to testify in an investigation of the incident as an alleged homicide. Former human rights ombudsman Waldo Albarracín has described the charges of kidnapping and attempted homicide as without merit. Vice-presidential candidate (2020 ). Following the 2019 Bolivian political crisis which saw the resignation of President Evo Morales and his government, new election were called by Interim President Jeanine Áñez. On 19 January 2020, Morales announced that after eight hours of meetings in Argentina, Luis Arce and former Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca had been chosen to be the candidates of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) in the 2020 elections. The presidential election, originally scheduled for May 3, was postponed twice due to the Covid19 pandemic. and rescheduled to be held in October 2020. On 19 October 2020, he and Luis Arce were announced as  the winners in the elections by the interim president Jeanine Añez, and on the 28 October 2020, they were confirmed as the winners by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. Vice President (2020–present). Choquehuanca and Arce were inaugurated on 8 November 2020. At his swearing in, Choquehuanca gave a conciliatory speech and emphasised balance between the left and right. On 13 December 2020, President Luis Arce, who in 2017 had travelled to Brazil to undergo surgery for kidney cancer, announced he would return to Brazil to undergo a routine medical examination. Choquehuanca was made acting president for three days until 15  December.