José Mendieta

As was the case on the municipal council, Mendieta spent much of his tenure in the Chamber of Deputies working to improve access to water in Cochabamba's underdeveloped regions, for which he spent most of his term heading the chamber's Natural and Hydric Resources and Water Committee. Mendieta's term as chair also saw significant developments in Bolivia's dispute with Chile regarding sovereignty over the Silala River. In late 2012, the committee, followed shortly thereafter by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, passed a bill declaring the river's waters a strategic natural resource. "We are ratifying with this law our full right over these water resources", Mendieta stated, "we do not have to ask permission from anyone, not from Chile ... or any other country on the use of the Silala".

The alliance between the MAS and the drivers' unions solidified from 2005 on, and translated into the nomination of at least one union representative per department. Mendieta's prominence as a local transport leader led Sacaba's drivers' union to select him as their representative in parliament. Customarily, candidates chosen by the drivers' unions were registered on the MAS's electoral list, but Mendieta's municipal experience led the party to run him in a single-member constituency. He won by an absolute majority in Cochabamba's circumscription 28, one of the MAS's main bastions of support.

The shift in disposition among the drivers' unions coincided with the rising primacy of the nascent Movement for Socialism (MAS-IPSP), with both groups steadily coalescing into a broader alliance. Already in 2004, Mendieta was invited by the MAS to run for a seat on the Sacaba Municipal Council, a position he won. His tenure as a municipal councillor focused on guaranteeing the water supply in Sacaba, a region that continued to suffer debilitating shortages in the wake of the Cochabamba water conflict.

José Félix Mendieta Villarroel (born 15 November 1958) is a Bolivian mathematics professor, politician, and trade unionist who served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies from Cochabamba, representing circumscription 28 from 2010 to 2015. Though educated in pedagogy, Mendieta spent most of his career in commercial driving, climbing through the ranks of the sector's trade unions to eventually become general secretary of the Sacaba Mixed Motor Transport Union. Though traditionally conservative, under the leadership of figures like Mendieta, many of the country's drivers' unions reoriented themselves towards the left. The sector's alliance with the Movement for Socialism opened spaces for many of its representatives to attain elective office. Such was the case with Mendieta, who, from 2005 to 2009, served on Sacaba's municipal council before being elected to represent Cochabamba's drivers' unions in parliament.

José Mendieta was born on 15 November 1958 in Sacaba, Cochabamba, to Profacio Mendieta and Florencia Villarroel. Mendieta was raised in a household of modest means; his father worked as a commercial driver while his mother was a local merchant. He completed his primary education at the Germán Busch School, later attending the José Nicolas Maldonado School before seeking higher education in pedagogy, graduating from the Enrique Finot Normal School. He taught mathematics at an institution in Warnes but retired after just two years due to the financial constraints and low income received from practicing the profession.