Alejandro Vilca

Alejandro Ariel Vilca (born 5 July 1976) is an Argentine activist, garbage worker, trade unionist and politician, active in the Socialist Workers' Party (PTS). A member of the indigenous Qulla people, Vilca was elected to the provincial legislature of Jujuy Province in 2017 on the Workers' Left Front (FIT) list, which won 18% of the vote. In 2021, he was elected to the National Chamber of Deputies.

Alejandro Vilca
National Deputy
Assumed office
10 December 2021
ConstituencyJujuy
Provincial Legislator of Jujuy
In office
10 December 2017 – 9 December 2021
Personal details
Born (1976-07-05) 5 July 1976
San Salvador de Jujuy, Argentina
Political partySocialist Workers' Party
Other political
affiliations		Workers' Left Front – Unity (2011–present)

Early life

Vilca was born on 5 July 1976 in San Salvador de Jujuy, capital of Jujuy Province. His family belongs to the Qulla people, one of the many indigenous peoples who inhabit the Argentine Northwest.[1] Alongside his four siblings, he was raised by a single mother who worked as a domestic maid and janitor at the city's private hospital. Vilca grew up in the San Isidro neighbourhood. Upon finishing high school, he moved to San Juan to study architecture at the National University of San Juan (UNSJ); he worked odd jobs as a mason, a waiter, and an ice cream vendor to sustain himself while he studied.[2] In the UNSJ he joined En Clave Roja, the Socialist Workers' Party (PTS) student wing which was then in opposition to the education reform of president Carlos Menem.[3]

Activism and political career

From 1996, Vilca became an active member of the PTS, regularly attending protests and picketing organised by the unemployed, teachers and state workers of San Juan. He was forced to drop out of university and return to Jujuy due to economic hardships, and upon his return, he began organising the PTS in his home province. Vilca sought to share the anti-capitalist and socialist ideals he had forged during his time in university.[4]

Vilca became an employee at the San Salvador municipal government. In 2006, he led a protest alongside the Coordinadora Provincial de Trabajadores en Negro (a provincial trade union for informal sector workers), which grouped teachers and health workers, among other state workers, seeking higher wages and better work conditions. Following that, Vilca and another major activists involved in the protests were transferred to garbage collecting at the Alto Comedero neighbourhood. The protests would eventually pay off, however, as many of those workers were given contracts by the municipal government as they had requested.[5]

Ahead of the 2011 general election, a number of trotskyist political parties, including the PTS, formed the Workers' Left Front to contest the election. Vilca was nominated as the alliance's candidate for governor of Jujuy: he received 1.93% of the vote. Four years later, in 2015, Vilca was the first candidate in the FIT list to the provincial legislature. He received 7.06% of the vote, nearly enough to be elected.[6]

Provincial deputy

Ahead of the 2017 legislative election, Vilca was nominated as the first candidate in the FIT list to both the National Chamber of Deputies and the Legislature of Jujuy. Following a largely successful campaign,[7] he received 17.74% of the vote in the general election, placing third overall – still not enough for him to be elected to the National Congress, but more than enough to elect Vilca to the provincial legislature alongside three other FIT candidates.[8] He was sworn in as deputy on 4 December 2017.[9]

National deputy

In the 2021 legislative election, Vilca once again ran for a seat in the National Chamber of Deputies on the FIT list. Both in the primary elections and in the general election, Vilca's list received over 23% of the vote, less than 1% away from the Frente de Todos list. It was the best result the FIT had ever seen in a provincial election.[10] Vilca was elected, and he was sworn in as deputy on 7 December 2021.[11]

In May 2023 he won 13% of the vote in the election for governor of Jujuy province.[12]

Electoral history

Executive
Electoral history of Alejandro Vilca
Election Office List Votes Result Ref.
Total  % P.
2011 Governor of Jujuy Workers' Left Front 5,705 1.93% 5th Not elected [13]

Legislative
Electoral history of Alejandro Vilca
Election Office List # District Votes Result Ref.
Total  % P.
2015 Provincial Legislator Workers' Left Front 1 Jujuy Province 24,199 7.06% 3rd[lower-alpha 1] Not elected [14]
2017 Workers' Left Front 1 Jujuy Province 59,251 15.86% 3rd[lower-alpha 1] Elected [15]
2021 National Deputy Workers' Left Front 1 Jujuy Province 63.512 17.74% 3rd[lower-alpha 1] Elected [16]
  1. Presented on an electoral list. The data shown represents the share of the vote the entire party/alliance received in that constituency.

References
  1. Degl'Innocenti, Cecilia (17 November 2021). "Quién es Alejandro Vilca, el recolector de basura de origen coya que será diputado nacional". Perfil (in Spanish). Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  2. Provéndola, Juan Ignacio (14 September 2017). ""Ciertos centros de difusión instalan la idea de que el que gana decide y el que protesta debe acatar"". Página/12 (in Spanish). Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  3. "Alejandro Vilca, el trosko que desafió a los dueños de Jujuy". El Ciudadano (in Spanish). 4 November 2017. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  4. "[Video] Entrevista a Alejandro Vilca: "En Jujuy es hora de cambiar la historia"". La Izquierda Diario (in Spanish). 23 April 2019. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  5. Flakin, Nathaniel (1 April 2018). "This Trash Worker Was Elected to Provincial Congress on a Socialist Ticket". Left Voice. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  6. "Numerosas bancas alcanzó Cambia Jujuy". El Tribuno (in Spanish). 27 October 2015. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  7. del Corro, Patricio (3 November 2017). "La gran elección del Frente de Izquierda". Perfil (in Spanish). Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  8. Ferre, Juan Cruz (26 December 2017). "The Antidote to Macri". Jacobin Magazine. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  9. "Quedó conformada ayer la nueva Legislatura". El Tribuno (in Spanish). 5 December 2017. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  10. Del Plá, Romina (14 November 2021). "Romina Del Plá: "La gran elección de la izquierda, un punto de apoyo para enfrentar el pacto con el FMI"". Workers' Party (Argentina) (in Spanish). Retrieved 18 November 2021.
  11. Piscetta, Juan (5 December 2021). "Alejandro Vilca, el recolector de basura que asumirá como diputado: "No quiero que lo que vivió mi familia le pase a otros"". Infobae (in Spanish). Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  12. Belano, Robert (9 May 2023). "Historic election for the Anticapitalist Left in Jujuy, Argentina". Left Voice. Retrieved 13 May 2023.
  13. "Elecciones 2011". tribelectoraljujuy.gov.ar (in Spanish). Tribunal Electoral Permanente de Jujuy. Retrieved 4 February 2023.
  14. "Elecciones 2015". tribelectoraljujuy.gov.ar (in Spanish). Tribunal Electoral Permanente de Jujuy. Retrieved 4 February 2023.
  15. "Elecciones 2017". tribelectoraljujuy.gov.ar (in Spanish). Tribunal Electoral Permanente de Jujuy. Retrieved 4 February 2023.
  16. "Elecciones 2021". argentina.gob.ar (in Spanish). Dirección Nacional Electoral. Retrieved 4 February 2023.
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