Eva Copa

Mónica Eva Copa Murga (born 3 January 1987) is a Bolivian politician, social worker, and former student leader serving as mayor of El Alto since 2021.

Eva Copa was born on 3 January 1987 in El Alto, La Paz, the penultimate of seven children born to Clementina Murga, an artisan from Pucarani, and her husband, Ignacio Copa.

She was raised in the Pasankeri barrio of La Paz, along the border with El Alto, where she attended the Luís Espinal Camps Educational Unit.

While still a teenager, during the gas conflict of the early 2000s, she participated in popular protests that toppled the government of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada.

Upon graduating, she hoped to attend the Higher University of San Andrés but, due to the high tuition cost, she instead went to the Public University of El Alto (UPEA).

While studying for a degree in social work, she participated in various student activist groups, eventually rising to become executive secretary of the Student Center and general secretary of the Local University Federation (FUL) of the UPEA.

In this position, she represented the UPEA as a delegate to the Executive Committee of the Bolivian University's National Congress.

Copa is married to Pablo Callisaya Ajahuana, with whom she has two children: Santiago and Samanta.

An unlikely choice of candidate due to her youth, she was elected senator for La Paz in 2014 but maintained a low profile for the majority of her tenure.

She lives with her children and mother in El Alto's 14th district; her husband periodically visits from his place of work in the city's interior.

Copa is a Methodist, though she has emphasized the importance of Bolivia's status as a secular state.

Despite going by her middle name in public life, among friends and family, she is familiarly known as "Moni".

In 2014, the FUL, as a member of the Regional Workers' Center (COR), submitted Copa, as a student representative, and Edwin Callejas, as a teacher representative, to the Movement for Socialism (MAS-IPSP)'s list of pre-candidates for deputies, in preparation for that year's general elections.

Though she was initially ruled out from consideration as either a deputy or substitute deputy, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE)'s decision to instruct parties to apply the principle of gender parity and alternation in candidacies led the MAS to revise its lists.

As its candidate for first senator for La Paz was José Alberto Gonzales, the position of second senator corresponded to a woman from El Alto or one of the department's provinces.

Despite being thirty-seventh on the list, Copa was ultimately selected as the MAS' candidate in representation of the UPEA, a fact she only learned by reading her name in the local newspaper.

Her nomination was atypical as the registration of candidates for Senate under thirty years of age was uncommon.

It indicated that, within the MAS, access to legislative positions relied less on strength in party leadership and more on the occupation of positions relevant to related social movements.

Her campaign recruited the support of seventeen of the twenty-six student centers to participate in marches, paint murals, and accompany the candidates.

As a member of the Movement for Socialism, she previously served as senator for La Paz from 2015 to 2020, during which time she was president of the Senate from 2019 to 2020.

Born to a family of Aymara descent, Copa studied at the Public University of El Alto, where she held student leadership positions.

Elected in the MAS' overwhelming 2014 victory, Copa was sworn in on 18 January 2015.

Despite being senator for one of the MAS' major bases of support, her lack of a close relationship with party boss and president Evo Morales led her to keep a low profile for the majority of her senatorial term.

In the midst of the 2019 political crisis, she quickly gained national prominence when the Plurinational Legislative Assembly elected her president of the Senate, a position of increased importance due to the vacancy in the vice-presidential office.

Copa cooperated with the transitional government in convoking new elections, but also remained critical of what she viewed as its undemocratic tendencies.

Shortly after closing the legislative session, Copa was seen as a frontrunner for the mayorship of El Alto, but failed to receive the MAS' nomination.

Her decision to present her candidacy on behalf of the Jallalla La Paz civic group resulted in her expulsion from the MAS' ranks.

Nonetheless, Copa managed to win the election with almost seventy percent of the popular vote, a significant electoral defeat for the MAS in its historic center of support.

On 3 May 2021, she was inaugurated as mayor of El Alto.

Months into her term, Copa was ousted from Jallalla due to political disagreements with its leader but maintained a majority of supporters on the city's municipal council, conforming the so-called "RenuEva" bloc.

This situation changed in the final months of her originally set term, when, after the resignation of Morales and much of his government in the midst of the 2019 political crisis, the remaining senators of the ruling party and the opposition unanimously elected her president of the Senate on 14 November.

She succeeded Jeanine Áñez, who two days prior had briefly assumed the position before becoming president.

Due to the vacancy in the vice presidency left by Álvaro García Linera, who abdicated in tandem with Morales, Copa's position also correlated with the presidency of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly and left her next in line for the presidency.

Despite the confrontational stance of the more radical sectors of the MAS, Copa took a conciliatory position towards the interim government.

In her opening speech, she called on Bolivians to "divest [them]selves of colors, of radical positions", and stated that "what our country is looking for at this moment is peace".

In the early days of the transitional government, she pushed against demands by some members of her party for the assembly to reject Morales' resignation and worked with Áñez to enact the law that facilitated the convocation of new elections.

At a press conference held in December 2019, Copa denounced harassment from these MAS groups and targeted her colleague, Santa Cruz Senator Adriana Salvatierra, whom she labelled a "radical".

Finally, in January 2020, the assembly voted to definitively accept Morales' resignation.

Due to her stances, some MAS groups supporting Morales demanded Copa's removal from the presidency of the Senate.

At a rally that ratified the former president as the MAS' campaign manager, leaders of the power plants in Cochabamba proposed replacing her with Senator Pedro Montes of Oruro.