Initially supportive of the left-wing policies of President Evo Morales, Rek split with the government over disagreements regarding political autonomy for Bolivia's eastern departments.

Centa Rek was born on 27 August 1954 in San José de Chiquitos, a small town situated in eastern Santa Cruz's tropical Chiquitania region.

[1] On her father's side, Rek is of ethnic German descent;[2] the family's presence in the region dates back to her grandparents, who first settled the Chiquitania with their children,[3] where they developed extensive careers in agriculture and cattle ranching.

[3] She completed her final year of secondary in Santa Cruz de la Sierra before traveling to the United States as part of a cultural exchange program.

She wrote as a columnist for various press outlets, directed and edited the children's magazine Alfeñique, and spent six years co-hosting the political analysis show Rayos X.

Her extensive criticism of the capitalist and neoliberal economic model promoted by figures such as Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada initially led her to sympathize with the nascent Movement for Socialism.

In 2009, despite her lack of party affiliation, Rek accepted an invitation on the part of the opposition National Convergence (PPB-CN) alliance to contest a seat in the Chamber of Senators in representation of Santa Cruz.

[6] As a parliamentary group, the CN caucus quickly imploded, a product of the flight from the country of its main leader, Manfred Reyes Villa, and the inability—and unwillingness—of the alliance's component parties to form an organizational committee.

Before even being sworn in, she joined New Civic Power (NPC), a newly-founded party led by her senatorial colleague, Germán Antelo,[16] that quickly absorbed a majority of CN's parliamentary delegation in Santa Cruz.

[24][25] However, that alliance quickly crumbled after Doria Medina entered a pact with Santa Cruz Governor Rubén Costas, whose personal rivalries with Antelo provoked the latter into pulling out of the arrangement.

Through her work in journalism, Rek came into contact with civic leader Luis Fernando Camacho, who invited her to once again contest a Senate seat on behalf of his Creemos party, a proposal she accepted.

[36][37] In that vein, after spending a term on the Senate's directorate,[38] Rek spent the ensuing years of her tenure operating within committees and commissions dealing with the country's territorial organization.