David Choquehuanca

David Choquehuanca

David Choquehuanca Céspedes (born 7 May 1961) is a Bolivian diplomat, peasant leader, politician, and trade unionist serving as the 39th vice president of Bolivia since 2020. A member of the Movement for Socialism, he previously served as minister of foreign affairs from 2006 to 2017 and as secretary general of ALBA from 2017 to 2019. An ethnic Aymara, Choquehuanca was born in Cota Cota Baja, later completing secondary education in Huarina, where he became an adherent of Marxist thought. He studied philosophy at institutes in La Paz and Havana before joining the indigenous peasant labor movement, during which time he became acquainted with cocalero activist Evo Morales, with whom he went on to form the Movement for Socialism. Through the late 1990s and early 2000s, Choquehuanca served as a key advisor to indigenous organizations and peasant leaders, including Morales, and was the national coordinator of the Nina Program, an NGO dedicated to training activist leaders. In 2006, Morales tapped Choquehuanca to head the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a position he exercised for over a decade, becoming one of Morales' most trusted government officials. At exactly eleven years, Choquehuanca's tenure was the longest of any foreign minister in Bolivian history and the second-longest of any government minister after Luis Arce. As foreign minister, Choquehuanca oversaw a break in relations with the United States and the expulsion of its ambassador, deepened relations with Bolivia's left-wing neighbors without alienating more conservative Latin American governments, and headed the country's historic lawsuit against Chile at The Hague, though he was no longer in office when the International Court of Justice ruled against Bolivia in 2018. Choquehuanca represented the "moderate Indiani

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