Romina Pérez

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Pérez and the second or maternal family name is Ramos.

Romina Pérez
Headshot of Romina Pérez
Ambassador of Bolivia to Iran
Incumbent
Assumed office
4 February 2021
PresidentLuis Arce
Preceded byPosition established
In office
3 June 2019 – 15 November 2019
PresidentEvo Morales
Preceded byWalter Yañez[α]
Succeeded byPosition dissolved
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
from Cochabamba
In office
18 January 2015 – 3 June 2019
SubstituteAdemar Valda
Preceded byRebeca Delgado
Succeeded byGrover Cuevas
ConstituencyParty list
Personal details
Born
Romina Guadalupe Pérez Ramos

(1958-11-17) 17 November 1958 (age 66)
Cochabamba, Bolivia
Political partyMovement for Socialism
Other political
affiliations		Communist
Alma materHigher University of San Simón
Occupation
  • Diplomat
  • politician
  • sociologist
SignatureCursive signature in ink

Romina Guadalupe Pérez Ramos (born 17 November 1958) is a Bolivian academic, diplomat, politician, and sociologist who served as ambassador of Bolivia to Iran from 2019 to 2020 and since 2021. A member of the Movement for Socialism, she previously served as a party-list member of the Chamber of Deputies from Cochabamba from 2015 to 2019. Pérez graduated as a sociologist from the Higher University of San Simón before completing postgraduate studies in the European Union. She comes from a generation of leftist academics who entered political activity as activists against the military dictatorships of the 1970s and 80s, as well as the neoliberal democratic governments that succeeded them. Her work in the field of women's and ethnic rights led her to join multiple NGOs, including the Center for Legal Studies and Social Research, through which many academics and intellectuals became politically linked with the Movement for Socialism. In 2014, she won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies on the party's electoral list but did not complete her term, being appointed ambassador to Iran in mid-2019.

Early life and career

Romina Pérez was born on 17 November 1958 in Cochabamba.[1] She studied at the Higher University of San Simón, graduating with a bachelor's in sociology and a master's in planning, elaboration, and evaluation of sustainable development projects, in addition to a diploma in political science from San Simón's Center for Higher University Studies. From 2009 to 2011, she undertook postgraduate studies abroad, receiving an Erasmus Mundus scholarship to attend the universities of Copenhagen, Granada, and Rennes, where she completed a double master's in public health. Through a separate scholarship, Pérez also attended the University of Bologna, completing courses in health administration and social work management.[2]

Pérez comes from a generation of intellectuals and researchers mainly educated in social and human sciences whose political trajectories were defined by their left-wing sympathies. She entered political activity as an activist against the ultra-conservative military dictatorships of the 1970s and 80s and, from 1982, in opposition to the neoliberal democratic governments that succeeded them. In her adolescence, Pérez joined the communist youth, which later resulted in her exile to the Soviet Union for some time. Returning to Bolivia, she worked alongside the country's mineworkers—one of the Communist Party's primary sectoral bases of support—compiling their history, political agitations, and class struggles. The finished audio literary works were donated to the archives of the Syndical Federation of Bolivian Mineworkers.[3][4]

Political career

From 1985 to 1988, Pérez served as vice president of the Bolivian University Confederation and represented Bolivia at the International Union of Students. Throughout the 1990s, she worked as a university professor at various public and private institutions.[5] As with numerous prominent leftist academics around this time, Pérez's career at the turn of the twentieth century shifted its emphasis away from class struggle and toward the full realization of women's and ethnic rights.[3] From 1996 to 1998, she served as director of gender in the municipal governments of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, was a consultant for various indigenous organizations, and held positions at multiple NGOs, including the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights and the Center for Legal Studies and Social Research.[6] The latter, a left-wing institution aligned with the indigenous movement, "became a 'nursery' for intellectual and political cadres of the Movement for Socialism (MAS-IPSP)", many of whom got their start in the 2006–2007 Constituent Assembly.[7] Such was the case with Pérez, who was appointed as a delegate to the Constituent Assembly on behalf of the Cochabamba prefecture. Upon the assembly's closure, she continued to serve in the prefecture as its director of gender until 2008.[8]

Pérez's association with the MAS solidified in 2014 when the party nominated her as a candidate for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies. She topped the party's electoral list in the Cochabamba Department, providing for an easy entry into the chamber.[3] In addition to ordinary parliamentary work, Pérez spent much of her tenure serving as a member of the mixed special commission that investigated the privatization and capitalization process that occurred between 1990 and 2001, a post in line with her opposition to the neoliberal economic practices of the day. The commission ultimately determined that the sale of State-owned enterprises in that period cost the country US$21 billion in economic damages.[9][10] In the international sphere, she served as a member of the Parliamentary Confederation of the Americas and was vice president and, from 2018, president of the body's Women Parliamentarians Network.[11]

Diplomatic career

Nearing the conclusion of her term in 2019, Pérez was designated to serve as ambassador to Iran,[12] a country with which Bolivia under Evo Morales strengthened bilateral relations due to shared political positions, especially regarding the United States's "meddling" in international affairs.[13] However, her brief tenure in Tehran was cut short not long thereafter due to the political crisis her home country suffered in November, an event Pérez denounced as a coup d'état.[14] Within days of its assumption, the conservative transitional government that succeeded Morales terminated eighty percent of his administration's ambassadorial staff,[15] and in mid-2020, it closed the country's embassy in Iran, ostensibly as a cost-saving measure.[16] When Bolivia reinitiated relations with Iran following the MAS's return to power, Pérez was ratified as the country's ambassador.[17]

Pérez's second term as head of the Bolivian legation in Tehran coincided with a series of women's rights demonstrations that wracked the West Asian country following the violent death of Mahsa Amini in late 2022. Referring to the unrest, Iran's state news agency reported that Pérez, on behalf of the Bolivian government, had condemned the protests, stating that the "riots" had been "perpetrated by British and American Zionists".[18] The ambassador's polemic statements caused controversy back home, with opposition politicians and feminist organizations demanding her removal from office.[19] In response, the Bolivian Foreign Ministry quickly recalled Pérez to La Paz to "receive a report and evaluate the circumstances" of her statements. For her part, Pérez denied ever making such declarations, assuring that her words had been "distorted", for which she demanded that Iranian media outlets rectify the discrepancy.[20] Days later, the Islamic Republic News Agency issued a clarification, stating that it had made an "inaccurate interpretation of the ambassador's words".[21]

Electoral history

Electoral history of Romina Pérez
Year Office Party Votes Result Ref.
Total % P.
2014 Deputy Movement for Socialism 637,125 66.67% 1st Won [22][β]
Source: Plurinational Electoral Organ | Electoral Atlas

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Romina Pérez.

Notes

  1. ^ As chargé d'affaires.
  2. ^ Presented on an electoral list. The data shown represents the share of the vote the entire party/alliance received in that constituency.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Guarachi, Ángel (9 May 2019). "Senado tramita designación de la diputada Romina Pérez como Embajadora en Irán". La Razón (in Spanish). La Paz. Archived from the original on 10 May 2019. Retrieved 12 October 2022.
  2. ^ Red de Mujeres Parlamentarias 2018, para. 1–3, 7.
  3. ^ a b c Romero Ballivián 2018, p. 455.
  4. ^ Red de Mujeres Parlamentarias 2018, para. 5.
  5. ^ Red de Mujeres Parlamentarias 2018, para. 5–6.
  6. ^ Red de Mujeres Parlamentarias 2018, para. 4, 6.
  7. ^ Romero Ballivián 2018, pp. 385, 455, 517.
  8. ^ Red de Mujeres Parlamentarias 2018, para. 7.
  9. ^ "La Asamblea designa por unanimidad a seis legisladores para segunda comisión que investigará privatización" (in Spanish). La Paz. Oxígeno. 20 February 2015. Archived from the original on 14 October 2022. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  10. ^ "Romina Pérez fue elegida como embajadora en Irán". El Diario (in Spanish). La Paz. 10 May 2019. Archived from the original on 14 October 2022. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  11. ^ Red de Mujeres Parlamentarias 2018, para. 11.
  12. ^ "Exmagistrado que elogió a Evo y exministras Suxo y Campero juran como embajadores". Página Siete (in Spanish). La Paz. 3 June 2019. Archived from the original on 11 October 2022. Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  13. ^ Ramos, Daniel; Laing, Aislinn (11 November 2020). Written at La Paz. "Bolivia restores ties with Iran, Venezuela after socialists return to power". Reuters. London. Archived from the original on 12 November 2020. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  14. ^ "Aguardan informe de Pérez, designada por Evo y Arce". Los Tiempos (in Spanish). Cochabamba. 12 October 2022. Archived from the original on 12 October 2022. Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  15. ^ "Gobierno retira a Bolivia del ALBA y cesa a un 80% de los embajadores de Evo" (in Spanish). La Paz. ERBOL. 15 November 2019. Archived from the original on 23 January 2022. Retrieved 15 October 2022.
  16. ^ "Bolivia cierra sus embajadas en Nicaragua e Irán para 'ahorrar'". Deutsche Welle (in Spanish). Berlin. 5 June 2020. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  17. ^ Staff writer (4 February 2021). Written at La Paz. "Cuatro exfuncionarios de Evo Morales representarán a Bolivia en el exterior". Swissinfo (in Spanish). Bern. EFE. Archived from the original on 14 October 2022. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  18. ^ "Bolivia condenó las marchas feministas en Irán y apoyó al régimen". Infobae (in Spanish). Buenos Aires. 9 October 2022. Archived from the original on 11 October 2022. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  19. ^ Mendoza, Karem (11 October 2022). "Piden alejar a embajadora Pérez y canciller la cita en La Paz para dar un informe". El Deber (in Spanish). Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Archived from the original on 11 October 2022. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  20. ^ Staff writer (10 October 2022). Written at La Paz. "Bolivia convoca a embajadora en Irán por polémica declaración sobre protestas". Swissinfo (in Spanish). Bern. EFE. Archived from the original on 11 October 2022. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  21. ^ "Agencia iraní dice que 'hubo interpretación inexacta' en su información sobre embajadora boliviana". Página Siete (in Spanish). La Paz. 13 October 2022. Archived from the original on 13 October 2022. Retrieved 19 October 2022.
  22. ^ "Elecciones Generales 2014 | Atlas Electoral". atlaselectoral.oep.org.bo (in Spanish). La Paz: Plurinational Electoral Organ. Archived from the original on 31 January 2023. Retrieved 20 September 2022.

Works cited