Lidia Patty

Lidia Patty was born on 7 June 1969[1] in the Charazani Municipality, capital district of La Paz's Bautista Saavedra Province.[2] The region, situated in the Bolivian Yungas, is home to the Kallawaya, an indigenous ethnic group of which Patty is part.[1][3] As with many Kallawaya, Patty is a practitioner of traditional medicine, a product of her people's historic dedication to folk healing.[3][4]

Patty completed portions of her primary schooling in Charazani before moving to La Paz at age 19. She spent some time employed in domestic service before receiving the support of a social aid institute to return home and complete her education. After a few years of study, during which time she was also taught to read and write Quechua, Patty graduated with a pre-university trade degree.[2] She applied that knowledge to education as a schoolteacher in the employment of SEDEGES, a local government agency.[5]

In 1994, Patty joined the Bartolina Sisa Confederation,[6] the national indigenous peasant women's union,[7] serving as its provincial executive until 1999.[2] Around this time, she also began making inroads into politics. Although originally a partisan of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), Patty quickly grew disenfranchised with the party and resigned from its ranks within a few weeks or months of registering. "I did not agree with their ideology," she explained, "the MIR used us indigenous people; I did not want to be used." Instead, Patty turned to a less established front: the nascent Movement for Socialism (MAS-IPSP). According to one indigenous authority from the Saavedra Province, once the MAS established a presence in Charazani, Patty became a member "overnight".[8]

In 1999, with the campaign underway for that year's municipal elections, Patty was nominated to seek a seat on the Charazani Municipal Council. She topped the MAS's electoral list in the district but failed to attain the position. Undeterred, she again contested the race in 2004 and was elected as a substitute councillor.[2] Throughout her tenure, Patty stood out as a polemic figure, even netting herself a year-long suspension for "bad behavior" at one point, although she alleges that it was really retribution for her denunciations of economic mismanagement. Patty later challenged the suspension in court and won, forcing the municipality to pay her financial compensation.[8]

Following the conclusion of her term on the municipal council, Patty remained active in party politics and union organizing, rising to become departmental secretary of the Bartolina Sisa Confederation.[1] In 2014, the MAS nominated her to accompany Manuel Canelas as his running mate on the party's electoral list. She agreed and was elected to represent the La Paz Department in the Chamber of Deputies.[9] In doing so, Patty became the first Kallawaya woman ever to hold a seat in parliament—elected alongside José Mendoza,[10][11] together becoming the second and third Kallawaya parliamentarians, after Walter Álvarez.[12]

Sworn in at the beginning of 2015,[13] Patty spent the first three years of her term fulfilling the relatively low-profile role of a substitute deputy. That was until early 2018, when Canelas resigned from the legislature to join the executive branch as vice minister of planning and coordination.[14] In his stead, Patty was sworn in as a primary deputy, with all the added legislative powers the role entailed.[15] After taking office, Patty's public presence did not significantly increase, and she mostly focused her efforts on small-scale projects, such as those promoting Kallawaya culture and medicinal practices.[16]

Following the 2019 political crisis, Patty gained increased notoriety as a staunch critic of interim president Jeanine Áñez, whom she considered partially responsible for the ouster of then-president Evo Morales.[17] Throughout the transition process, Patty issued frequent denunciations against the president and her cabinet, criticizing everything from the government's decision to close down schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic to alleged acts of political corruption.[18][19] To combat the latter, Patty presented the so-called "Rooting Law", a bill that would prevent government authorities from traveling abroad for a period of six months after leaving office.[20] The legislation was passed into law in September 2020, despite concerns from human rights observers that it violated certain standards, such as the presumption of innocence and freedom of movement.[21]

Official portrait, 2017

Patty was not nominated for reelection in the 2019 general election.[22] Following the annulment of those results, her and other parliamentarians' terms of office were extended until new elections could be held;[23] however, she was not among the select few incumbent MAS legislators included on its slate of candidates that cycle either.[24]

• Constitution, Legislation, and Electoral System Commission
  • Constitutional Development and Legislation Committee (2016–2018)[25][26]
  • Democracy and Electoral System Committee (2015–2016)[27]
• Human Rights Commission
  • Gender Rights Committee (2018–2019)[28]
• Social Policy Commission
  • Housing and Public Services Committee (2019–2020)[29]

Shortly after the conclusion of her parliamentary term, Patty ramped up her efforts to prosecute those she considered culpable for promoting a "coup d'état" against Morales and his government. Less than a month after leaving office, Patty filed a formal complaint with the Prosecutor's Office against a number of individuals for the crimes of conspiracy, sedition, and terrorism. "These gentlemen have to be tried; they have violated our Constitution," she stated.[30][31] Although the process—dubbed the Coup d'état Case—was initially only intended to try prominent military and police personnel for their role in the 2019 crisis, it later became the catalyst for the prosecution and eventual detention of Áñez and a number of her former ministers.[32][33] The process, which netted Áñez a ten-year prison sentence, remains ongoing.[34] Patty continued to call for the prosecution and arrest of other opposition figures, such as Luis Fernando Camacho and former president Carlos Mesa; even some ruling party officials, including Adriana Salvatierra and her own ex-colleague, Manuel Canelas, whom she considered traitors for having negotiated with the opposition.[35][36][37]

Patty registers her application for the post of ombudsman, 31 March 2022.

Having gained national notoriety for her role in the prosecution of Áñez, Patty announced her intention to launch a bid to become the country's human rights ombudsman. Although the selection process was under the purview of the MAS-majority Legislative Assembly, Patty's active membership within the party hampered her ability to attain the position, as all applicants were required to have been politically independent for at least the past eight years.[38] Patty submitted her application anyway, justifying that the MAS was not a party but a "political instrument ... made up of the Bolivian people."[39] She argued: "if they disqualify me, it will be discrimination because the Constitution comes before the regulations."[40] Patty formally delivered her documentation on the penultimate day of registration, announcing to her supporters her readiness "to enforce the Constitution, enforce the agreements, the laws, the norms that we have ... [I] want to work closely with the people, hand in hand."[39] Ultimately, Patty's candidacy was disqualified, partially on account of her political partisanship, but officially due to her failure to sign her curriculum vitae.[41]

In December 2022, the Senate began considering Patty as a possible contender for a diplomatic role.[42] Specifically, she was nominated to become ambassador to Paraguay, a decision that drew mixed reactions, given her lack of diplomatic experience. For opposition senator Centa Rek, the nomination demonstrated "that positions in embassies are used to fill a quota from some wing of the MAS ... it would be a degradation of diplomatic service. She has no career or accreditation; what role can she have in the foreign service?"[43] For her part, Patty justified that assuming an ambassadorship did not require diplomatic experience. "I have my indigenous, native, peasant diplomacy," she stated, "aboriginal indigenous people also live in Paraguay." "You don't need people that prepare because you learn everything along the way," she added.[44]

By early 2023, Patty's nomination had begun to stall in parliament, a fact she attributed to "discrimination" on the part of opposition legislators, for which she announced her intent to take legal action—a move that, in turn, caused some MAS legislators to sour on her designation.[45][46] Ultimately, the nomination was dropped, and Patty was instead appointed in May to serve as consul in Puno, Peru.[47] That designation quickly proved controversial with the Peruvian government, given Patty's close relations with Morales,[48] whose operations in southern Peru—one of the then-epicenters of anti-government protests—had strained relations and caused the former president to be barred from entering the country.[49][50] On 12 June, the Peruvian Foreign Ministry formally requested that the Bolivian government annul Patty's appointment, stating that, in allowing her to exercise diplomatic functions without receiving the necessary exequatur permitting her presence,[lower-greek 1] the country was in violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.[53] The Bolivian Foreign Ministry expressed its disagreement with the Peruvian government's determination, but nonetheless recalled Patty to La Paz the following day.[55] She tendered her resignation shortly thereafter,[56] and was reassigned as vice consul in La Plata, Argentina, in September 2023.[57]