Silvia Lazarte

Silvia Lazarte, a Bolivian Indigenous woman from Quechua ancestry, became the President of the Constituent Assembly on August 6, 2006. Ms. Lazarte was a peasant leader representing the Santa Cruz department, although she was born in the Cochabamba Department. She became the principal authority of this important conclave through an agreement between social organizations and President Evo Morales that considered the presence of an Indigenous woman to be of capital importance in the design of a new State.