Nelly Núñez

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

Nelly Núñez
Official portrait, 2014
Member of the Chamber of Deputies from Oruro circumscription 32
In office 19 January 2010 – 18 January 2015
Substitute	Benjamín Flores
Preceded by	Lizandro García
Succeeded by	Gonzalo Aguilar
Constituency	Oruro
Personal details
Born	Nelly Núñez Zegarra (1948-11-16)16 November 1948 Pulacayo, Potosí, Bolivia
Died	10 May 2021(2021-05-10) (aged 72) Oruro, Bolivia
Political party	Movement for Socialism (2003–2021)
Other political affiliations	Conscience of Fatherland (until 2002)
Occupation	Nurse politician

Nelly Núñez Zegarra (16 November 1948 – 10 May 2021) was a Bolivian nurse and politician who served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies from Oruro, representing circumscription 32 from 2010 to 2015.

Núñez emigrated from her hometown of Pulacayo, Potosí, to metropolitan Oruro when she was still an infant. She worked for a short while as a nurse at the city's general hospital but stepped aside to allow her husband to become the sole breadwinner, while she raised their children as a housewife.

Entering politics later in life, Núñez integrated the ranks of Conscience of Fatherland and held control of the party's affiliate branch in Oruro. She suffered two defeats in her efforts to enter parliament until the party's dissolution led her to seek out a new front. Núñez joined the Movement for Socialism in 2003 and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies representing the party in 2009. She was not nominated for reelection.

Early life and career

Background and early life

Nelly Núñez was born on 16 November 1948 in Pulacayo, a mining settlement in the Uyuni Municipality of rural Potosí Department. She was the penultimate of four children – one boy and three girls – born to José Félix Núñez Navarro, a mineworker, and Benita Zegarra Rocha, a homemaker and weaver.

Due to her father's vocation – he was chief of welfare for the mineworkers – Núñez's family were stationed at various mining sites in different regions of the country. They settled permanently in Oruro when Núñez was 2 years old, where she was brought up and educated.

Family and career

Núñez worked as a nurse at the General Hospital of Oruro but retired to become a housewife upon marrying her husband, a gynecologist. She had her first of three children shortly thereafter and relocated to Sucre to provide for their education – though she maintained a weekly presence in her home region, where her husband remained as a mine doctor.

With her children grown and in university, Núñez returned to Oruro, where she began engaging in local associative and political spaces. Together with her daughter, she served on the directorate of the Caporales Cultural and Folkloric Fraternity, a Cochabamba-based caporales troupe composed of students from Oruro at the Higher University of San Simón.

Chamber of Deputies

Election

Further information: 2009 Bolivian general election

In politics, Núñez initially aligned with Conscience of Fatherland (CONDEPA) during a period of factional infighting within the populist party. She stood as a candidate for Chamber of Deputies in 1997 but ranked too low on the CONDEPA party list to secure a seat. Come 2002, Núñez had been named departmental leader of CONDEPA in Oruro and occupied the top party-list slot in that year's general election. By then, however, the party's open schism had diminished its electoral prospects. In Oruro, CONDEPA fell from second place the previous cycle to dead last – part of a nationwide underperformance that led to the loss of its legal recognition.

The implosion of CONDEPA fueled the rapid rise of another anti-establishment party, the Movement for Socialism (MAS), which absorbed a significant portion of the defunct party's electorate. Many orphaned CONDEPA leaders took up new posts within the MAS, including Núñez, who joined the party in June 2003. She held local leadership roles in the MAS through its rise to government and into 2009, when she was nominated to contest single-member circumscription 32 in the Chamber of Deputies, encompassing parts of Oruro Municipality. She won the constituency with ease, flipping the seat in favor of the ruling party.

Tenure

In office, Núñez's legislative priorities centered on criminal justice reform and judicial reform. The plight of Bolivia's incarcerated population was especially prominent on her agenda. Most of the country's inmates lack a criminal conviction, and of those who receive and complete their sentence, many – Núñez noted – are not released until much later. Núñez served as chair of the Human Rights Committee from 2010 to 2011 and was part of Bolivia's delegation to the Latin American Parliament, where she lobbied for the improvement of living conditions for inmates in member states' prison facilities. As two-term chair of the Ordinary Jurisdiction Committee, Núñez was a principal architect of Bolivia's reformulated civil procedure code. Enacted in 2013, the legislation introduced some 500 articles intended to optimize the judicial system with the ultimate goal of minimizing the length of civil litigation to a one-year maximum.

In the ensuing years, Núñez assumed positions of leadership within her parliamentary group, starting as deputy leader of the MAS caucus in Oruro. Having been considered for the post in 2013, she was elected leader in 2014 – an influential position, considering the party's domination of the department's delegation. At the same time, Núñez's selection faced discontent from a segment of her caucus, with subsequent allegations of influence peddling on behalf of her daughter leading several colleagues – including her substitute, Benjamín Flores – to file a complaint against her with the Prosecutor's Office. Núñez, for her part, denied the allegations as a "political show". She was not nominated for reelection at the end of her term.

Commission assignments

• Human Rights Commission
  • Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Committee (Secretary: 2010–2011)
• Social Policy Commission
  • Social Welfare and Protection Committee (2011–2012)
• Plural Justice, Prosecutor's Office, and Legal Defense of the State Commission
  • Ordinary Jurisdiction and Magistracy Council Committee (Secretary: 2012–2014)
• International Relations and Migrant Protection Commission
  • International Economic Relations Committee (2014–2015)

Personal life and death

Núñez married Fernando Ramos Zabalaga at age 22. The couple had three children: Carola Nashira, a lawyer; José María, an architect; and Osmar Fernando, a commercial engineer. Núñez died some years after leaving office in her home city of Oruro, on 10 May 2021, aged 72.

Electoral history

Electoral history of Nelly Núñez

Year	Office	Party		Votes			Result	Ref.
				Total	%	P.
1997	Deputy		Conscience of Fatherland	24,596	20.87%	2nd	Lost
2002			Conscience of Fatherland	606	0.42%	11th	Lost
2009			Movement for Socialism	22,692	55.98%	1st	Won
Source: Plurinational Electoral Organ | Electoral Atlas

References

Works cited

Online and list sources

• Cámara de Diputados del Estado Plurinacional [@Diputados_Bol] (10 May 2021). "Q.E.P.D. Nelly Núñez Zegarra" (Tweet) (in Spanish). La Paz. Archived from the original on 10 May 2021. Retrieved 7 November 2023 – via Twitter.
• "Comisiones y Comités: Periodo Legislativo 2011–2012". diputados.bo (in Spanish). La Paz: Cámara de Diputados del Estado Plurinacional. Archived from the original on 26 May 2011. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
• "Comisiones y Comités: Periodo Legislativo 2012–2013". diputados.bo (in Spanish). La Paz: Cámara de Diputados del Estado Plurinacional. Archived from the original on 5 February 2012. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
• "Elecciones Generales 1997 | Atlas Electoral". atlaselectoral.oep.org.bo (in Spanish). La Paz: Órgano Electoral Plurinacional. Archived from the original on 2 November 2023. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
• "Elecciones Generales 2002 | Atlas Electoral". atlaselectoral.oep.org.bo (in Spanish). La Paz: Órgano Electoral Plurinacional. Archived from the original on 2 November 2023. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
• "Elecciones Generales 2009 | Atlas Electoral". atlaselectoral.oep.org.bo (in Spanish). La Paz: Órgano Electoral Plurinacional. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
• "Nelly Núñez Zegarra" (in Spanish). La Paz. ERBOL. Archived from the original on 2 November 2023. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
• "Nómina de candidatos a diputados plurinominales: Elecciones Generales 1997". cne.org.bo (in Spanish). La Paz: Corte Nacional Electoral. Archived from the original on 4 March 2007. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
• "Nómina de candidatos a diputados plurinominales: Elecciones Generales 2002". cne.org.bo (in Spanish). La Paz: Corte Nacional Electoral. Archived from the original on 13 July 2007. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
• "Nómina de diputados plurinominales electos para el departamento de Oruro: Elecciones Generales 1997". cne.org.bo (in Spanish). La Paz: Corte Nacional Electoral. Archived from the original on 4 November 2005. Retrieved 9 May 2024.
• "Uyuni – Provincia A. Quijarro". educa.com.bo (in Spanish). 28 December 2015. Archived from the original on 12 June 2016. Retrieved 4 November 2023.

Digital and print publications

• "ADN y CONDEPA: Los grandes perdedores" [ADN and CONDEPA: The Biggest Losers]. La Patria (in Spanish). Oruro. 1 July 2002. Archived from the original on 6 August 2019. Retrieved 7 November 2023.
• "Asambleistas departamentales sesionarán por primera vez este viernes 5 de febrero" [Departmental Assembly Members to Session for the First Time This Friday, 5 February]. La Patria (in Spanish). Oruro. 1 February 2010. p. 5. Archived from the original on 18 May 2023. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
• "Caporales de San Simón festejó 35 años de devoción hecha danza" [Caporales of San Simón Celebrated 35 Years of Devotion Turned into Dance]. La Patria (in Spanish). Oruro. 24 November 2013. p. 10. Archived from the original on 9 November 2023. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
• "CONDEPA cerró campaña sin presencia de Nicolás Valdivia" [Without the Presence of Nicolás Valdivia, CONDEPA Closes Its Campaign]. La Patria (in Spanish). Oruro. 27 June 2002. Archived from the original on 6 August 2019. Retrieved 3 November 2023.
• "Cuatro partidos politicos dejan de existir" [Four Political Parties Cease to Exist] (in Spanish). La Paz. Agencia Boliviana de Información; Bolpress. 17 July 2002. Archived from the original on 4 November 2023. Retrieved 3 November 2023.
• "Delegación de parlamentarios bolivianos participará en 'Parlatino'" [Delegation of Bolivian Parliamentarians Will Participate in Latin American Parliament]. La Patria (in Spanish). Oruro. 8 July 2010. p. 5. Archived from the original on 9 November 2023. Retrieved 9 November 2023.
• "Diputada Núñez fue denunciada por presuntos hechos de corrupción" [Deputy Núñez Denounced for Alleged Acts of Corruption]. La Patria (in Spanish). Oruro. 25 February 2014. p. 5. Archived from the original on 8 November 2023. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
• "Diputado Edgar Contaja es jefe de la bancada del MAS" [Deputy Edgar Contaja Is Leader of the MAS Caucus]. La Patria (in Spanish). Oruro. 14 January 2013. p. 4. Archived from the original on 9 November 2023. Retrieved 9 November 2023.
• Loza, Sayuri (9 October 2022). "Democracia popular" [Popular Democracy]. Página Siete (in Spanish). La Paz. Archived from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved 7 November 2023.
• "Nuevo código procesal civil evitará la retardación de justicia" [New Civil Procedural Code Will Avoid Delays in Justice]. La Patria (in Spanish). Oruro. 4 July 2013. p. 5. Archived from the original on 8 November 2023. Retrieved 9 November 2023.
• "Presentan cargos en contra de diputada por supuesto tráfico de influencias" [Delegation Files Charges Against Lawmaker for Alleged Influence Peddling]. La Patria (in Spanish). Oruro. 27 May 2014. p. 6. Archived from the original on 8 November 2023. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
• "Promulgarán código procesal civil" [President to Sign Civil Procedural Code]. El Diario (in Spanish). La Paz. 19 November 2013. Archived from the original on 19 November 2013. Retrieved 9 November 2023.
• "Q.E.P.D. Nelly Núñez Zegarra". La Patria (in Spanish). Oruro. 11 May 2021. Archived from the original on 27 October 2021. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
• "Ricardo Aillón una vez más presidente de la brigada parlamentaria de Oruro" [Ricardo Aillón Once Again President of the Oruro Parliamentary Delegation]. La Patria (in Spanish). Oruro. 18 January 2014. p. 4. Archived from the original on 18 June 2023. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
• Vaca, Mery (15 May 2009). "Bolivia: 73% de presos sin sentencia" [Bolivia: 73% of Inmates Lack a Sentence]. BBC Mundo (in Spanish). London. Archived from the original on 2 December 2020. Retrieved 9 November 2023.

Books and encyclopedias

• Gonzales Salas, Inés, ed. (2013). Biografías: Historias de vida en la Asamblea Legislativa Plurinacional (in Spanish). Editorial Gente Común; ERBOL; Fundación Friedrich Ebert; IDEA Internacional. pp. 249–251. ISBN 978-99954-93-05-9. OCLC 876429743 – via the Internet Archive.
• Romero Ballivián, Salvador (2018). Quiroga Velasco, Camilo (ed.). Diccionario biográfico de parlamentarios 1979–2019 (in Spanish) (2nd ed.). La Paz: FUNDAPPAC; Fundación Konrad Adenauer. p. 415. ISBN 978-99974-0-021-5. OCLC 1050945993 – via the Internet Archive.
• Vargas Luna, María Elena; Villavicencio Arancibia, Jois Sarelly, eds. (2014). Primera Asamblea Legislativa Plurinacional de Bolivia, Cámara de Diputados: Diccionario biográfico, diputadas y diputados titulares y suplentes 2010–2015 (in Spanish). La Paz: Cámara de Diputados del Estado Plurinacional. p. 111. OCLC 961105285 – via the Internet Archive.

External links

• Parliamentary profile Office of the Vice President (in Spanish).
• Biographic profile ERBOL (in Spanish).