Lydia Gueiler Tejada
Lydia Gueiler Tejada (born 28 August 1921) was Bolivia's first female President, serving in an interim capacity from 1979 to 1980. Gueiler was born in Cochabamba, and studied to become an accountant. Gueiler was a member of the National Congress of Bolivia from 1956 until 1964, but then spent fifteen years in exile. Later, upon returning to Bolivia, she became Subsecretary for Agriculture, and then president of the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of the Bolivian congress). She was a member of the small Revolutionary Party of the National Left. After the elections of 1979, Wálter Guevara Arze became President, but was shortly afterwards overthrown in a military coup. The leader of the coup, Alberto Natusch Busch, was not accepted by the Congress, however, and Gueiler was proclaimed interim president pending fresh elections. Before these elections could be held, however, Gueiler herself was overthrown by General Luis García Meza Tejada. Gueiler left the country, living in France until Meza's government fell. Later, she served as Bolivia's ambassador to first West Germany and then Venezuela. She has also been involved in various Bolivian feminist organisations, and in opposing the US-backed war on drugs in Latin America, particularly Plan Colombia. She has written two books, publishing La mujer y la revolución ("Women and Revolution") in 1960 and her autobiography, Mi pasión de lidereza, in 2000.
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