MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolivian VP wants El Cóndor Pasa to become second national anthem

Choquehuanca insisted on the double use of the traditional Bolivian fag alongside the whiphala

Bolivian Vice President David Choquehuanca Wednesday suggested that the En Cóndor Pasa melody be added as a second national anthem in addition to the current one, in a move to reflect the country's plurinational nature.

Choquehuanca proposed that effective as of 2023 the two anthems should be sung: the national anthem of Bolivia while hoisting the Bolivian flag, and El Cóndor Pasa to hoist the whiphala, or indigenist flag. He had once argued that the national flag represented the colony and that the whiphala meant plurinationality.

”When we hoist the tricolor (the national flag) we sing the national anthem and then, when we hoist our whiphala, we have to sing our Cóndor Pasa. There are several lyrics, maybe next year we will sing both, our tricolor with the anthem and our whiphala with our Cóndor Pasa,“ he said in his speech during an event at a La Paz theater earlier this week marking the 11th anniversary of the enactment of Law 151, which declared as belonging to the country's Cultural Heritage the Symbols of Markas, Ayllus and the Native Communities of the Suyo Ingavi.

The Vice President also launched the idea that a contest be held to write new lyrics to the melody of Peruvian origin composed by Daniel Alomía Robles in 1913 and made popular worldwide in the late 1960s by the US duo of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, albeit with English-language words.

Choquehuanca also stressed the Aymara community should walk with their heads held high and that the use of the Aymara language should be fostered among the young people born in the western part of the country. ”We have to start walking with our heads up, no longer with our heads down, like sheep, that's how we have been taught, to walk like sheep, we have no reason to bend our heads.”

In his speeches, Choquehuanca speaks both in Spanish and Aymara, depending on his audience, and his most radical announcements usually occur when meeting with La Paz peasants.