Alejandro Ariel Vilca (born 5 July 1976) is an Argentine activist,
garbage worker, trade unionist and politician, active in the
Socialist Workers' Party (PTS). A member of the indigenous
Qulla people
The Qulla (Quechuan for ''south'', Hispanicized and mixed spellings: ''Colla, Kolla'') are an indigenous people of western Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina living in west of Jujuy and west of Salta Province. The 2004 Complementary Indigenous Survey r ...
, Vilca was elected to the
provincial legislature of
Jujuy Province
Jujuy is a province of Argentina, located in the extreme northwest of the country, at the borders with Chile and Bolivia. The only neighboring Argentine province is Salta to the east and south.
Geography
There are three main areas in Jujuy:
...
in
2017
File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a s ...
on the
Workers' Left Front (FIT) list, which won 18% of the vote. In
2021
File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October 2021 coup in Sudan; Crowd shortly after t ...
, he was elected to the
National Chamber of Deputies.
Early life
Vilca was born on 5 July 1976 in
San Salvador de Jujuy
San Salvador de Jujuy (), commonly known as Jujuy and locally often referred to as San Salvador, is the capital and largest city of Jujuy Province in northwest Argentina. Also, it is the seat of the Doctor Manuel Belgrano Department. It lies near ...
, capital of
Jujuy Province
Jujuy is a province of Argentina, located in the extreme northwest of the country, at the borders with Chile and Bolivia. The only neighboring Argentine province is Salta to the east and south.
Geography
There are three main areas in Jujuy:
...
. His family belongs to the
Qulla people
The Qulla (Quechuan for ''south'', Hispanicized and mixed spellings: ''Colla, Kolla'') are an indigenous people of western Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina living in west of Jujuy and west of Salta Province. The 2004 Complementary Indigenous Survey r ...
, one of the many indigenous peoples who inhabit the Argentine Northwest. Alongside his four siblings, he was raised by a single mother who worked as a domestic maid and janitor at the city's private hospital. Vilca grew up in the San Isidro neighbourhood. Upon finishing high school, he moved to
San Juan to study architecture at the
National University of San Juan
The National University of San Juan (in Castilian, ''Universidad Nacional de San Juan'', UNSJ) is a public university in Argentina. Its seat is located in the city of San Juan, capital of the province of the same name, in the Cuyo region. It wa ...
(UNSJ); he worked odd jobs as a mason, a waiter, and an ice cream vendor to sustain himself while he studied. In the UNSJ he joined En Clave Roja, the
Socialist Workers' Party (PTS) student wing which was then in opposition to the education reform of president
Carlos Menem.
Activism and political career
From 1996, Vilca became an active member of the PTS, regularly attending protests and
picketing organised by the unemployed, teachers and state workers of San Juan. He was forced to drop out of university and return to Jujuy due to economic hardships, and upon his return, he began organising the PTS in his home province. Vilca sought to share the anti-capitalist and socialist ideals he had forged during his time in university.
Vilca became an employee at the San Salvador municipal government. In 2006, he led a protest alongside the Coordinadora Provincial de Trabajadores en Negro (a provincial trade union for
informal sector
An informal economy (informal sector or grey economy) is the part of any economy that is neither taxed nor monitored by any form of government.
Although the informal sector makes up a significant portion of the economies in developing countrie ...
workers), which grouped teachers and health workers, among other state workers, seeking higher wages and better work conditions. Following that, Vilca and another major activists involved in the protests were transferred to garbage collecting at the Alto Comedero neighbourhood. The protests would eventually pay off, however, as many of those workers were given contracts by the municipal government as they had requested.
Ahead of the
2011 general election, a number of
trotskyist
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...
political parties, including the PTS, formed the
Workers' Left Front to contest the election. Vilca was nominated as the alliance's candidate for
governor of Jujuy: he received 1.93% of the vote. Four years later, in
2015, Vilca was the first candidate in the FIT list to the provincial Chamber of Deputies. He received 7.06% of the vote, nearly enough to be elected.
Provincial deputy
Ahead of the
2017 legislative election, Vilca was nominated as the first candidate in the FIT list to both the National Chamber of Deputies and the
Legislature of Jujuy
The Legislature of Jujuy Province ( es, Legislatura la Provincia de Jujuy) is the unicameral legislative body of Jujuy Province, in Argentina. It convenes in the provincial capital, San Salvador de Jujuy.
It comprises 48 legislators elected in a ...
. Following a largely successful campaign, he received 17.74% of the vote in the general election, placing third overall – still not enough for him to be elected to the National Congress, but more than enough to elect Vilca to the provincial legislature alongside three other FIT candidates.
He was sworn in as deputy on 4 December 2017.
National deputy
In the
2021 legislative election, Vilca once again ran for a seat in the National Chamber of Deputies on the FIT list. Both in the primary elections and in the general election, Vilca's list received over 23% of the vote, less than 1% away from the
Frente de Todos list. It was the best result the FIT had ever seen in a provincial election. Vilca was elected, and he was sworn in as deputy on 7 December 2021.
References
External links
TV interview (Spanish)Jujuy candidates (Spanish)Vilca sobre la nueva legislatura
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vilca, Alejandro
Living people
1976 births
Argentine trade union leaders
Members of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies elected in Jujuy
Members of the Legislature of Jujuy
Socialist Workers' Party (Argentina) politicians
Argentine people of indigenous peoples descent