Alvaro Garcia Linera

Biography

He was born in Cochabamba and graduated from San Agustin High School. Then, he studied at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City and became a mathematician. Returning to his native Bolivia, he attempted to put some of his long-held socialist ideology to practice and joined the Katarist "Ayllus Rojos", a series of experimental, Marxist-inspired native communities in northwestern Bolivia. When this attempt at grass-roots politics failed, Garcia opted for a more radical approach. Alongside Felipe Quispe, he organized and worked in the insurgent Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army. After being caught destroying electrical distribution towers in rural La Paz, he was arrested and charged with insurrection and terrorism.

While imprisoned, he studied sociology. After his release he worked as a university professor, political analyst, and news commentator. He was a well known academic, known for his support of indigenous and left-wing political movements in South America (in spite of his upper-middle class upbringing and the fact that he is of Spanish descent). He wrote a monograph about the different political and social organizations that were a part of the political rise of the MAS and other indigenous factions, Sociologia de los Movimientos Sociales en Bolivia (Sociology of Social Movements in Bolivia), which was published in 2005.

Political career

Garcia was elected vice president as the running partner to Evo Morales in the 2005 presidential elections.

He is an advocate of nationalization of Bolivia's hydrocarbon industry. In 2005 interview, he said that hydrocarbons "would be the second unifying factor of this society in October, 2003" and that "the debates over hydrocarbons are playing with the destiny of [Bolivia]."

In December 2010, Linera posted the cables mentioning Bolivia from the website WikiLeaks, which leaks information from classified sources and whistleblowers, on his official page. Linera said linking this negative information was intended to allow people to see “barbarities and insults” in Washington and to expose their "interventionist infiltration."

Garcia Linera has supported regulating what Bolivians are allowed to say on social media outlets, saying that he is constantly online "writing down the first and last names of the people who insult [President Evo Morales] on Facebook and Twitter." These comments have been criticized by free speech advocates.

Garcia Linera has defended the Law of the Rights of Mother Earth, saying that it is not intended as a means to hamper industrial development or mineral extraction. Private miners have disagreed with this stance, suggesting that the law allows the government to expropriate their operations without providing compensation and that is signals Bolivia is hostile to foreign investment.

Garcia Linera has indicated his intention of leaving politics for teaching and writing in 2014, at the end of his current term. He did not comment on his re-election the same year to the present day.

Personal life

On March 8, 2012, Garcia Linera publicly confirmed his engagement to Claudia Fernandez Valdivia, a news anchor with Bolivian television station Red Uno. They were married in September 2012, holding an indigenous ceremony on Saturday the 8th and a Catholic one on Sunday the 9th.

Interviews, speeches and articles by Alvaro Garcia Linera