Santos Quispe

Santos Quispe Quispe (born 26 November 1982), commonly known as Wayna Mallku, is a Bolivian doctor and politician serving as governor of La Paz since 2021.

A member of Forward United People, of which he is the leader, Quispe was a relative unknown in politics until he replaced his late father, the renowned peasant leader Felipe Quispe, as Jallalla La Paz's candidate for the governorship of the La Paz Department.

Shortly after winning the election, Quispe terminated his party's pact with Jallalla, establishing a confrontational attitude with the Departmental Assembly for the duration of his term.

In early 2022, he was sentenced to house arrest with the right to work after being discovered allegedly intoxicated at his office.

Santos Quispe was born on 26 November 1982 in Achacachi, La Paz, the youngest of seven siblings born to Felipe Quispe, "the Mallku", a renowned Aymara peasant leader.

Quispe was raised in the Aymara community of Chilijaya in the Achacachi municipality, where he resided for the majority of his life.

In 2004, he enrolled as a student of sociology at the Higher University of San Andrés and from 2015 was a member of the student body of the Public University of El Alto, where he studied educational sciences.

Prior to becoming governor, Quispe was still enrolled in these institutions, carrying out his sixth and third semester, respectively.

He studied abroad in Cuba at the Latin American School of Medicine, graduating with a bachelor's degree in medicine in 2012.

In 2014, together with his father, Quispe participated in the formation of Forward United People (APU), a political party which, by 2021, lacked legal status with the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to participate in elections.

As a result, for the departmental elections in La Paz, Quispe secured an alliance for APU with the civic group Jallalla La Paz of Leopoldo Chui.

Upon returning to Bolivia, he joined the Association of Doctors Graduated Abroad and, in 2016, was appointed as part of the administrative support staff of the Departmental Health Service of La Paz (SEDES).

On 15 December 2020, the two fronts presented Quispe's father, Felipe Quispe, as Jallalla's candidate for the governorship of the La Paz Department.

However, just over a month later, on 19 January 2021, the Mallku unexpectedly died of cardiac arrest in the midst of the campaign.

His demise immediately put into question the electoral future of Jallalla, which was forced to seek an alternative candidate.

A day after the Mallku's death, the leadership of APU announced that it had decided that Santos Quispe would replace his father on the ballot.

Quispe characterized himself as the only candidate capable of fulfilling his father's legacy and stated that, if Jallalla failed to choose him, it would constitute a "betrayal" of the Mallku.

He further outlined that he already carried the support of Jallalla's mayoral candidates, including the popular ex-senator Eva Copa, who stated that "out of ethics, out of respect for the memory of our brother Felipe […], his successor is his son, Santos".

After a seven-day mourning period, on 2 February, Jallalla proclaimed Quispe as its replacement nominee.

The decision was reached through consensus between representatives from all seventy-eight municipalities in which the organization had a presence.

Upon assuming the candidacy, Quispe pledged to "sacrifice my life for humble people, for my father's ideals" and accused those calling him an "inheritor" of tarnishing his late father's image.

The results of the first round of voting on 7 March were close.

Exit polls indicated that Franklin Flores, the candidate for the Movement for Socialism, had reached thirty-nine percent of the vote, one point less than what was necessary to achieve a large enough plurality to avoid a runoff and win in the first round.

Because of this, Quispe denounced the possibility of electoral fraud and led his supporters in a vigil outside the headquarters of the Departmental Electoral Tribunal (TED).

Ultimately, the final tally revealed that Flores had failed to reach forty percent, pushing the two candidates into a second round.

On 14 April, Quispe was declared the virtual winner of the election, defeating Flores with fifty-five percent of the votes.

Quispe was sworn in as governor of the La Paz Department on 3 May 2021.

In his inaugural address, he promised to "always work for the unity of all Paceños" and notably announced that he was "removing my political color, I am not going to work for a political [party]".

On 28 April, on the same day the TED accredited him as governor, Quispe had publicly broken his pact with Jallalla and revealed his intent to move forward under the APU acronym.

In retaliation, just a week after Quispe took office, on 10 May, Jallalla expelled him from its organization, naming him a "traitor".

The group's leader, Leopoldo Chui, went on to announce that Jallalla had already begun to process of seeking support for a recall referendum against the governor.

Quispe responded by affirming that Jallalla could not expel him because, as the leader of APU, he was never even a member of that group.

Apart from the break with Jallalla, Quispe was involved in a further six separate controversies within his first month in office.

Two of these were recorded on his first day, stemming from the revelation that his wife, Ana María Salgado, had been elected as an assemblywoman, and his irritated response to a journalist who asked him about it.

Three days later, on 6 May, it was noted that Quispe had declared Bs0 in his affidavit of assets, despite the fact that he was a salaried worker at SEDES before being elected.

On 18 June 2021, Assemblyman Leopoldo Chui filed a criminal complaint with the Prosecutor's Office after the Governor's Office failed to deliver a report on the collision of a government vehicle on 13th Street in Calacoto on 13 June.

The victim of the accident, Jaime Jiménez Tórrez, alleged that Quispe was in the vehicle at the time of the crash, a claim denied by his office.

On 26 August, the Prosecutor's Office issued an arrest warrant against Quispe on charges of improper use of public goods and services and dangerous driving, though it was ultimately not executed upon appeal.

That same day, he testified that the legal processes against him were purely political and affirmed that he was not present during the accident.

On 22 December, Prosecutor Gustavo Balderrama reported that an investigation had determined that both Quispe and his driver were intoxicated when his official vehicle was involved in the traffic accident.