César Augusto Virguetti Pinto (17 June 1955 – 29 June 2021) was a Bolivian sociologist and politician who served as a

uninominal In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

member of the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...

from Cochabamba representing circumscription 20 from 2020 until his death from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

in 2021. He was a member of Civic Community.

Early life and career

César Virguetti was born on 17 June 1955 in Cochabamba. He studied sociology at the Higher University of San Simón, where he began his political activity fighting for the recovery of democracy in the country. In 1980, during the dictatorship of

Luis García Meza Luis García Meza Tejada (8 August 1929 – 29 April 2018) was a Bolivian general who served as the ''de facto'' 57th president of Bolivia from 1980 to 1981. He was a dictator convicted of human rights violations and leader of a violent coup. ...

, he was a member of an underground student committee aimed at recovering university autonomy from the government. A sociologist by profession, he later returned to the Higher University of San Simón as a professor at the Faculty of Humanities. From 1982 to 1984, he served as executive secretary of the Association of Promotion and Education Institutions OF Cochabamba. Later, from 1993 to 2003, he was the executive director and the city's Center for Research, Promotion, and Development. An active members of the Revolutionary Left Movement and Free Bolivia Movement, he worked as executive secretary of the Cochabamba Mayor's Office from 2006 to 2007. Additionally, he worked as a researcher and consultant for various NGOs.

Chamber of Deputies

In 2019, Virguetti participated in the foundation of the Cochabamba branch of the Civic Community (CC) alliance, serving in the front's departmental directorate. That year, he was elected as a deputy for Cochabamba in circumscription 20, though the results were annulled in the midst of a

political crisis Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

. In the rerun elections in October 2020, Virguetti achieved a second victory in the same district, winning over sixty percent of the vote. An avid environmentalist, he served on the Chamber of Deputies' Science and Technology Committee during his brief tenure.

Commission assignments

* Planning, Economic Policy, and Finance Commission ** Science and Technology Committee

Health issues and death

In mid-2021, Virguetti contracted

and was interned at a medical center in Cochabamba. After over a month in intensive care, he had a

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

as a complication of the virus and died on 29 June 2021. CC leader Carlos Mesa recalled that he was a "tireless fighter for democracy and human rights". Virguetti was married and had two children.

Electoral history

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Virguetti, Cesar 1955 births 2021 deaths 21st-century Bolivian politicians Bolivian environmentalists Bolivian sociologists Civic Community politicians Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Bolivia Higher University of San Simón alumni Members of the Bolivian Chamber of Deputies from Cochabamba People from Cochabamba