Juan Lechín

Juan Lechín Oquendo (18 May 1914 – 27 August 2001) was a Bolivian politician and trade unionist who served as executive secretary of the Bolivian Workers' Center from 1952 to 1987. He also served as minister of mining from 1952 to 1954 and as the 29th vice president of Bolivia from 1960 to 1964.

Born in Coro Coro, Lechín was radicalized by his experience as a laborer in the Catavi mine and combatant in the Chaco War. He founded the Syndical Federation of Bolivian Mineworkers in 1944 and the Bolivian Workers' Center in 1952, leading both organizations for decades as executive secretary. He fought in the Bolivian National Revolution and served as minister of mining under Víctor Paz Estenssoro from 1952 to 1954.

Lechín led the radical left wing of the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement, opposed to the more conservative bent of Hernán Siles Zuazo. In 1960, he was elected vice president alongside Paz Estenssoro, but broke with the president and founded the Revolutionary Party of the Nationalist Left in 1963. He backed a coup d'état led by René Barrientos in 1964 but was forced into exile the following year. Upon his return, Lechín was elected president of the Popular Assembly in 1971, which attempted radical reforms to the government structure.

Expelled again in 1972, Lechín remained in exile throughout the dictatorship of Hugo Banzer and returned during the democratic transition. He ran for president in the 1980 election but dropped out and was deported by the Luis García Meza regime. Following the return to democracy in 1982, Lechín led a vigorous opposition that crippled the Siles administration and challenged the neoliberalism of Paz Estenssoro. Amid the decline of the labor movement, Lechín resigned his trade union roles in 1987 and retired from public life. He died in 2001.