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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 LA PAZ 000604 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/06/2016 
TAGS: BL ECON PGOV PINR PREL
SUBJECT: PRAGMATIC INDIGENOUS LEFTIST RENE JOAQUINO ON THE 
RISE 
 
REF: A. LA PAZ 02473 
     ¶B. LA PAZ 02283 
 
Classified By: Ambassador David N. Greenlee for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) 
. 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: Embassy officials had lunch with mayor of 
Potosi and former presidential aspirant Rene Joaquino on 
March 3.  Joaquino is organizing a new political party that 
will be based out of Potosi, Chuquisaca, and Oruro, and will 
tap into the region's indigenous Quechua majority.  His main 
goal will be to get his center-left party registered for the 
Constituent Assembly (CA) and serve as a counterbalance to 
the MAS and radical left.  Joaquino is a soft-spoken realist 
who appears sincere in his interest to serve Bolivia.  He may 
be the kind of pragmatic indigenous leader with whom we can 
work.  End Summary. 
 
Toying With National Leadership 
------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (C) ECOPOL Counselor and two Poloffs had lunch with Mayor 
of Potosi Rene Joaquino Cabrera on March 3 to hear more about 
his future political aspirations.  He has had his sights set 
on becoming President of Bolivia since childhood.  In 2002, 
he backed the presidential campaign of Manfred Reyes Villa 
(NFR) in an effort to counter MAS inroads in Potosi (REF A). 
In 2005 he launched his own presidential campaign as a 
leftist counterweight to now President Evo Morales, pulling 
together a coalition for a Broad Front (Frente Amplio) 
citizen,s grouping based on the national mayors, 
association.  Despite quickly registering 9% support in the 
polls, Joaquino withdrew from the race when he failed to 
maintain the support of La Paz Mayor Juan del Granado, one of 
Bolivia,s most influential mayors who chose to back Morales 
instead.  Joaquino said that he has not worked with the other 
mayors since dropping out of the race. 
 
Forming A New Party 
------------------- 
 
¶3. (C) Joaquino has not been sidetracked from his goal of 
national leadership and instead has intensified his efforts 
to organize from the ground up.   Joaquino told us that he 
would soon formally register his new political party, the 
Social Alliance.  He described the party as a &modern left8 
in tune with the realities of globalization.  A soft-spoken 
Joaquino waxed poetic on the need for foreign investment and 
open markets.  He said that Bolivians were missing out on 
opportunities to sell their products abroad.  He thought that 
his party would be able to give a new face to the discourse 
surrounding criticisms of the neoliberal model.  When asked 
how he would answer criticisms that he was just another 
neoliberal supporting imperialist policies, Joaquino 
responded that Peru,s Alan Garcia, a leftist, ran his 
country,s economy into the ground during his presidency 
(1985-90) because of his statist policies.  Now, he 
continued, Garcia is subscribing to market policies that will 
keep the country moving forward and he is one of the top 
three candidates in the Peruvian race.  &The left has to 
learn from the past,8 he concluded. 
 
¶4. (C) Joaquino seemed to clearly understand the challenges 
he faces and said that he was reaching out to people not 
previously associated with the traditional parties.  A 
strategic thinker who plays political hardball (REF B), 
Joaquino is targeting Morales, party stronghold in Oruro, 
Potosi, and Chuquisaca and said that his new party would tap 
into the Quechua vote in those three provinces, dividing the 
MAS support (he figured that since Evo tapped into the Aymara 
side he could tap the Quechua side).  He also mentioned that 
the party,s color would be green, a powerful symbol of 
renovation in the indigenous culture. 
 
Critical of the New Administration 
---------------------------------- 
 
LA PAZ 00000604  002 OF 003 
 
 
 
¶5. (C) Joaquino was skeptical of Morales, ability to resolve 
Bolivia,s problems.  He criticized Morales for being an 
&anti-neoliberal8 while at the same time being open to 
Venezuelan and Cuban assistance.  Joaquino ridiculed the 
infiltration of Cuban doctors in Bolivia.  He said that they 
did not have any equipment to give treatment and that sick 
Bolivians were running around with prescriptions that they 
did not have any money to fill.  He also had harsh words for 
the literacy campaign underway.  Joaquino said that in Potosi 
they had been working on literacy for years and that they 
still had not achieved 100 percent literacy.  He said that if 
indeed the Morales administration showed sharp increases in 
the literacy rate in the following months it was only because 
they were manipulating statistics and were looking for a 
headline.  Many participants in these programs, he claimed, 
were already literate but wanted to receive free materials 
and any other potential benefits.  Finally, the mayor said 
that the CA would not solve Bolivia,s problems of poverty 
and unemployment. 
 
Eager to Learn 
-------------- 
 
¶6. (C) Joaquino is committed to learning all that he can to 
bolster his prospects for national leadership.   He has hired 
professional "tutors" to teach him what he'll need to know to 
become president, such as world history, geography, 
international monetary theory, economics, free trade, etc. 
He travelled to the United States on an IV program two years 
ago where he visited DC, CA, IN, OK and IL to learn about the 
US legislative system.  He has expressed interest in visiting 
the US again, this time for training in economic policy. 
 
¶7. (C) Joaquino has expressed openness to working with the 
United States beyond economic and political training.  He 
said his party,s platform regarding international relations 
would be based on bilateral and multilateral relationships 
where Bolivia has an opportunity to advance economically, and 
a relationship with the United States was one of those 
opportunities.  When asked what his party,s platform will be 
regarding coca, Joaquino said that there should be a 
scientific approach to the coca policy, looking at the 
decline of the traditional use of coca, the total growth of 
coca, the domestic consumption of cocaine, and the export of 
cocaine made from Bolivian coca.  An ex-miner who chews coca, 
the mayor noted that the younger generations no longer 
consume coca as much as before.  He said the US three-pronged 
approach ) eradication, interdiction, and alternative 
development ) seemed rational. 
 
Project Oriented 
---------------- 
 
¶8. (C) As mayor, Joaquino has shown promise as an astute 
administrator, focusing on tangible projects in Potosi that 
will build jobs for the local economy.  He was reelected in 
2004 with the largest margin of all the major cities' mayors, 
no easy feat in Bolivia, largely because of his 
results-oriented first term in office.  He takes a very 
pragmatic approach to his decision-making, weighing the costs 
and benefits of projects, and seeking areas where Potosinos 
have a competitive advantage.  For example, he talked at 
length about a project in the works to take two old colonial 
buildings and convert them into training centers for silver 
artisanry.  Joaquino argued that not only will this provide a 
way for Potosinos to tap into an area where they should have 
a competitive advantage, but it will also restore some of the 
architectural beauty of the colonial era by restoring the 
buildings and laying the groundwork to develop more tourism. 
He said that to date they have 40 instructors lined up, two 
of whom studied in Italy to strengthen their tradecraft. 
 
¶9.  (C)  Comment:  Joaquino impressed us during this two-hour 
lunch as a politician with a national plan and the ambition 
requisite to pursue it's implementation.  Ambition and vision 
 
LA PAZ 00000604  003 OF 003 
 
 
aside, Joaquino still remains true to his humble roots--the 
mayor travelled to La Paz from Potosi on an 8 hour bus-ride 
and hailed a cramped mini-bus following our lunch--an 
attractive feature for a Bolivian leader.  His desire for 
more training and education appears genuine and we intend to 
look for ways to help in this regard.  Based on our recent 
interactions with him, Joaquino may be the kind of pragmatic 
indigenous leader with whom we can work.  End Comment. 
 
Bio Notes 
--------- 
 
¶10. (U) Joaquino was born on 27 February 1966 in the Asiento 
community, Quijarro Province, Potosi.  He moved to the city 
of Potosi 15 years ago.  He worked in mines as a child 
beginning at age 7.  Nonetheless, he was not paid for his 
work until he was age 14.  He also worked in construction as 
a bricklayerfor ten years, according to press reports, and 
bread making as a child.  He earned a law degree at the Tomas 
Frias Autonomous University in Potosi.  Prior to being 
elected Mayor of Potosi, Joaquino was an adviser to the 
Campesinos Federation (Federacion de Campesinos) from 1993-98 
and was elected a member of the Potosi municipal council 
(1998) when he was 32 years old. 
 
¶11. (U) Joaquino is married to Raquel Maria Rodriguez 
Bolivar, a former NFR deputy (2002-06).  She now works in 
radio/tv.  Prior to being elected to congress she served as a 
Potosi municipal councilwoman.  Joaquino and his wife, both 
of Quechua origin, have three children. 
GREENLEE