Álvaro García Linera
Álvaro Marcelo García Linera is vice president of Bolivia as a member of the Movement Toward Socialism party. He was born in Cochabamba on October 19, 1962. He is a mathematician who studied at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. Back in Bolivia, he tried to put some of his longed socialist ideals to practice and joined marxist - katarist "Ayllus Rojos", a series of experimenal communist native comunities in northwestern Bolivia. However after this attempt failed to come to fruition Garcia Linera moved onto a more radical approach and along sides Felipe Quispe he organized and worked, mainly as an ideologist, in Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army. He was arrested and charged with insurrection and terrorism after being caught destroying electrical distribution towers in rural La Paz. While imprisoned without trial, he studied Sociology. After his release he became a sociologist and started working as a university professor, a political analyst and a news commentator. He was a well known academic, known for his support of indigenous (in spite of his upper middle class upbringing) and left-wing political movements in South America. He was elected vice president as the running mate Evo Morales in the 2005 Bolivian presidential elections.