On the evening of March 7, Eva Copa won her bet: conquer hands down, with 68.7% of the vote, the town hall of El Alto, the second largest city in Bolivia with 1 million inhabitants and bastion of social movements that have brought to power Evo Morales in 2005.

Ejercimos nuestro derecho al voto, destaco la masiva afluencia de los ciudadanos de #ElAlto that con mucha disciplina y responsilidad este domingo acudieron a las urnas a ejercer su derecho democrático.

pic.twitter.com/sN2iBpMD24

- Eva Copa (@EvaCopa_Bol) March 7, 2021

With her glasses, her shy looks and her long braid of hair, the young woman, mother of two children and senator since 2015, defeated the candidate invested by the party in which she has always campaigned, the MAS (Movement towards socialism) .

During the electoral campaign, the latter accused her of "treason" and of complicity with the "coup" which had led Evo Morales to exile in November 2019.

Eva versus Evo

Over the months, the confrontation between the official candidate of the party and the rebel from El Alto resulted in the expulsion of Eva Copa from the MAS.

Supported by the "Jallalla" party (which means "viva" in the Aymara language), the latter finally campaigned against the party of which she was one of the rising stars.

Supported by indigenous women's organizations, the new mayor of El Alto is now a rival or an alternative to the former Bolivian president who had dismissed her in December 2020.

During her campaign, Eva Copa highlighted her identity as Aymara (the majority indigenous group in the Bolivian Andes), the participation of women in political life and celebrated the political struggles waged by the MAS over the past twenty years while affirming that "loyalty does not mean submission".

The penultimate of a family of seven children, daughter of the rural exodus of peasants from the Altiplano to the cities, the social worker graduated from the public university of El Alto (UPEA) becomes a national political figure in November 2019, in the midst of a political crisis.

While Evo Morales, accused of electoral fraud by the opposition, and released by the police and the army, resigns and leaves Bolivia, she is elected president of the Senate.

The country is on the verge of civil war when she denounces "a forced constitutional transition", then a "coup d'état", and ends up signing an agreement with the revenge right which has installed itself at the head of the provisional government so that be organized new presidential elections.

La presidenta interina de Bolivia, Jeanine Anez, saluda a la presidenta de la Cámara de Senadores de Bolivia, Eva Copa, durante la firma de nuevas elecciones excluyendo al expresidente Evo Morales, en un paso clave para poner fin a semanas de disturbios mientras el Gobierno interino was prepared for reunirse con los protestantes para finalizar semanas de disturbios, in La Paz, Bolivia, on November 24, 2019. AFP - AIZAR RALDES

Several times postponed due to the health crisis linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, these elections were finally held in October 2020 and allowed the overwhelming victory of the MAS candidate, Luis Arce, appointed by Evo Morales.

During the electoral campaign, on the stands, Eva Copa recalled the role she played when the provisional government pursued the MAS activists and violently repressed the demonstrations.

"Damn, I want to tell these gentlemen: I had the courage to stay here, I fought for our people, I did not hide and I did not flee abroad".

Against machismo

Eva Copa's victory as mayor of El Alto is rich in symbols, because it was made against the will of ex-president Morales frequently accused of monopolizing power and despising women.

A victory which was also made possible by the cultural revolution triggered by the successive presidencies of Evo Morales (2005-2019), this "process of change", according to the official terminology, which allowed the indigenous majority of the country to gain political power.

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Elizabeth Huanca, doctoral student at the Andean Simon Bolivar University in Quito (Ecuador), identifies for France 24 three factors that allowed the political rise of Eva Copa: her courage to oppose candidacies "imposed" by Evo Morales first, his role in the political transition which allowed the peaceful return of the MAS to the head of Bolivia then, and finally the choice of his entourage, the Aymaras intellectuals who designed a realistic development project for the city of El Alto.

According to the analyst, Eva Copa symbolizes "a break with the male and macho political universe of a caudillo [charismatic military or political leader in South American political culture, Editor's note] like Evo Morales and a populist alternative to the left".

She also underlines the attraction that this strong personality exerts on the mothers of El Alto who want their daughters to resemble Eva Copa by becoming "modern, contemporary Aymara women, who have a profession, participate in political life, claim. rights and refuse to be silent ".

A modern vision of the natives in politics?

The other key to Eva Copa's success is, according to her, to claim the heritage of the Aymara Indians, which is not simply a folklore, but a modern political vision that emphasizes local democracy.

Erika Brockmann, ex-senator and Bolivian political scientist, also emphasizes that Eva Copa symbolizes a rupture within the party of Evo Morales which has dominated Bolivian political life for more than fifteen years.

"Does she represent the indigenous woman romantically evoked and instrumentalized by the governments of Evo Morales or a new indigenous identity? Eva Copa is a young woman from El Alto who aspires to education and claims a place in the globalized world, it is not limited to an esoteric vision of Pachamama, the religion of the Earth-Mother of the Aymaras ".

Now mayor of the hectic El Alto, Eva Copa is supported by the powerful corporations of Aymara entrepreneurs, very attached to their ancestral Andean culture, and "is only socialist in speeches", adds Erika Brockmann.

This support could make her "prisoner" of these very prosperous and influential pressure groups in a city which celebrated its 36th anniversary in March, two more than Eva Copa.

Find the original article in Spanish

here

(translation: David Gormezano)

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