Carlos Subirana Gianella

Carlos Eduardo Subirana Gianella (born 18 August 1986) is a Bolivian lawyer and politician who served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies from Santa Cruz, representing circumscription 50 from 2010 to 2015.

Subirana was born into the wealthy, established Subirana family of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

He is a son of Carlos Subirana Suárez, a prominent bank executive and politician.

He attended the elite bilingual Eagles' School before graduating as a lawyer from the Private University of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

Carlos Subirana was born on 18 August 1986 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra to businessman Carlos Subirana Suárez and his wife, Ana María Gianella Peredo.

The Subirana family are a wealthy, well-established clan in Santa Cruz with a penchant for public service.

His father worked as an executive in the financial services sector and served as minister of justice in the administration of Hugo Banzer; his uncle, Wálter, was minister of labor in the second cabinet of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada.

Raised Catholic, Subirana received an education befitting his family's social status.

He received his secondary Bachillerato from the prestigious bilingual Eagles' School in 2004, and studied law at the Private University of Santa Cruz de la Sierra – an elite institute that catered in large part to the city's economic and political upper crust.

Outside of office, Subirana spent the bulk of his career employed at a number of family-related businesses and media outlets.

He began as a paralegal at his father's firm, Subirana & Associates, where he later practiced law after his term in parliament.

Subirana served on the board of the MNR's department branch office in Santa Cruz; as a member of the party's youth wing, he composed part of the MNR campaign team for the 2006 Constituent Assembly election.

While still in law school in 2009, Subirana was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, representing an urban constituency in his home department.

Taking office at age 23, Subirana is one of the youngest persons ever elected to parliament – a development brought about by the reduction of constitutional age limits in place until the 2009 election.

The MNR maintained a protracted downward trajectory into the 2009 election season.

Eminently aware of its diminished electoral presence, the party's presidential candidate, Germán Antelo, withdrew to back National Convergence (CN), the big tent alliance of Manfred Reyes Villa.

For his support, CN granted Antelo broad discretion over its slate of candidates in Santa Cruz.

Subirana, still in law school then, was among the few MNR members Antelo selected as part of his pick of postulants.

He ran in and won single-member circumscription 50, an urban district encompassing western portions of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

After his father and great-grandfather, he was the third in the Subirana family to hold a seat in parliament.

Subirana was sworn in on 19 January 2010; at 23, he was the youngest voting member of the chamber and is one of the youngest persons ever elected to parliament.

A significant aspect of the 2010–2015 legislature was its youthful roster of members; the youngest lawmakers in the freshman class were the first to be elected under the auspices of the 2009 Constitution, which lowered the age threshold to hold office from 25 to 18 years.

A self-styled "proactive opponent", Subirana collaborated more frequently with the ruling Movement for Socialism (MAS) compared to other opposition lawmakers.

On occasion, this position earned him flack from more adversarial members of his caucus.

In legislation, Subirana hitched his platform to public safety reform, which he pursued while in office.

He penned modifications to articles 133 of the criminal procedure code and 177 of the penal code, which – with some amendments and under a different name – were enacted into law.

In 2013, he authored a bill that declared 23 September as the National Day Against Human Trafficking, which also passed into law.

Although elected as a member of the opposition, Subirana defected to the governing party in 2014, following the course of his father and other Santa Cruz elites, who saw closer ties to the government as more economically favorable than continued animosity.

After leaving office, Subirana joined his father's law firm, Subirana & Associates, where he previously worked as a paralegal.

In an abrupt about-face, Subirana flipped his support to the MAS in the 2014 election.

The reversal came as his father had been nominated to contest a seat in parliament on behalf of the ruling party.

The apparent shift in disposition was not entirely without precedent: the Subirana family had long been open about its alignment toward the political left.

Yet still, both Subiranas had until then been open critics of government policy – the elder through his newspaper and the younger as an opposition lawmaker.

In any case, the family's political realignment left Subirana on the electoral margins, and he was not nominated for a second term.

He served as general manager of the family-owned newspaper La Estrella del Oriente from 2015 to 2017 and sits on the publication's editorial board.

From 2015 to 2017, Subirana served as general manager of the family-owned newspaper La Estrella del Oriente; he currently holds a seat on the publication's editorial board.

He is a co-host with his father on the pro bono legal advice radio program Subirana Responde.

Before running for office, Subirana led a non-partisan youth political advocacy group based in Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

Following the breakup of the organization, he took the unusual step of joining the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR), a front in such steep political decline that Subirana himself would later describe it as a "dead party".

He led a cohort of youth activists that sought to reorient the MNR back to its ideological roots, away from the centrist neoliberalism promoted by past leadership.