[News] Ecuador: Left Turn?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Ecuador: Left Turn?

Written by Marc Becker
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2150/1/

Thursday, 08 October 2009

On April 26, 2009, Rafael Correa won re-election 
to the Ecuadorian presidency with an absolute 
majority of the vote. He gained broad popular 
appeal through a combination of nationalist 
rhetoric and increased social spending on 
education and health care. The victory cemented 
Correa’s control over the country as the old 
political establishment appeared to be in complete collapse.

Mainstream news outlets reported Correa’s triumph 
as another socialist win in Latin America. Barely 
a month earlier, Maurcio Funes of the former 
guerrilla Farabundo Martí National Liberation 
Front (FMLN) won El Salvador’s presidential 
elections, bringing the left to power for the 
first time in that country’s history.

Motivated by what is perhaps an unjustified 
optimism by the left, undue fear on the right, 
and the opportunism of eager politicians, 
socialism is increasingly seen as the dominant 
discourse in Latin America. Is Ecuador’s Correa 
justly included as part of a leftward tilt in 
Latin America, or is his inclusion in this trend a result of hopeful thinking?

On one hand, analysts now talk of Latin America’s 
“many lefts,” ranging through Chile’s neoliberal 
socialist president Michelle Bachelet, Bolivia’s 
Indigenous socialist Evo Morales, and Venezuela’s 
state-centered socialism of Hugo Chávez. On the 
other hand, this is not the first time that a new 
president in the small South American country of 
Ecuador has been warmly greeted as part of a leftward movement.

In 2003, in a seeming repeat of Chávez’s rise to 
power, Lucio Gutiérrez was elected president 
after a failed 2001 military-Indigenous coup. He 
quickly moved in a significantly neoliberal 
direction, alienating his social movement base 
and finally falling in an April 2005 popular 
uprising known the “rebellion of the forajidos” 
or outlaws. Gutiérrez continues to enjoy a 
significant amount of support from some sectors 
of the Ecuadorian population, particularly from 
evangelical Indigenous communities, but most of 
those on the left would now denounce him as a center-right populist.

While many outside observers either celebrated or 
bemoaned Correa’s consolidation of power as part 
of Latin America’s broader turn to the left, 
social movements in Ecuador have become 
increasingly critical of his populist 
positioning. Despite Correa’s claims that under 
his administration the long dark night of 
neoliberalism is finally over, Indigenous 
movements have condemned him for continuing 
basically these same policies through large-scale 
mineral extractive enterprises, particularly of 
petroleum in the ecologically delicate eastern Amazonian basin.

Rafael Correa and a New Constitution

Correa is a young economist and university 
professor who wrote his dissertation at the 
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 
attacking neoliberal economic policies known as 
the “Washington Consensus.” He does not emerge 
out of social movement organizing, but rather out 
of a Catholic left motivated by concerns for social justice.

Correa first came onto the public scene as the 
Minister of Finance in Alfredo Palacios’ 
government after Gutiérrez’s removal. Correa 
leveraged his popularity in that position to a 
win in the 2006 presidential elections.

In power, Correa appeared to attempt to follow 
Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez’s strategy to 
consolidate power through rewriting the 
constitution. He could then call for new 
elections that would reaffirm himself in office 
and provide for a more sympathetic legislature.

Like Chávez, Correa had run as an independent 
without the support of a traditional political 
party. The existing “party-ocracy” was severely 
discredited in both countries. Since 1996, not a 
single president in Ecuador had been able to 
complete a four-year term in office. Three 
presidents (Abdalá Bucaram in 1997, Jamil Mahuad 
in 2000, and Lucio Gutiérrez in 2005) were 
removed through massive street protests.

On April 15, 2007, three months after Correa took 
office, 80% of the Ecuadorian electorate approved 
a referendum to convoke a constituent assembly. 
Correa created a new political movement called 
Acuerdo País (AP) that on September 30, 2007 won 
a majority of seats in the assembly.

A year later, on September 28, 2008, almost 
two-thirds of the voters approved the new 
constitution that had been drafted largely under 
Correa’s control. As was the case with 
Venezuela’s 1999 constitution, Ecuador’s new 
Magna Carta so fundamentally remapped the 
country’s political structures that it required 
new local, congressional and presidential elections.

Lengthy and contentious debates in the 
constituent assembly resulted in a constitution 
that provided a basis for a more inclusionary and 
participatory political system. The new document 
rejected neoliberalism, and embraced increased 
resource allocation to education, social services 
and health care. Similar to Venezuela, it also 
employed gender inclusive language. It also 
expanded democratic participation, including 
extending the vote to those between 16 and 18 
years of age, foreigners living in the country 
for more than five years, and Ecuadorans living outside the country.

The constitution also defended the rights of 
nature, Indigenous languages, and in a highly 
symbolic gesture, pluri-nationalism designed to 
incorporate Indigenous cosmologies into the 
governing of the country. The constitution also 
borrowed from Bolivia’s Foreign Minister David 
Choquehuanca the Quechua concept of sumak kawsay, 
of living well not just better. Sumak kawsay 
includes an explicit critique of traditional 
development strategies that increased the use of 
resources rather than seeking to live in harmony with others and with nature.

Following Venezuela’s lead, Ecuador also created 
five branches of government. In addition to the 
executive, legislative, and judicial, the 
constitution added an electoral branch and a 
Consejo de Participación Ciudadana y Control 
Social or Council of Citizenship Participation 
and Social Control. The last branch is in charge 
of nominating officials including the attorney 
general and comptroller general.

The purpose for the new branch is to increase 
citizen participation and improve political 
transparency, although the opposition complained 
that it would concentrate more power in Correa’s 
hands. While advocates argued that a stronger 
executive was necessary to bring stability to 
this chronically politically unstable country, 
social movements feared that it would come at a 
cost to their ability to influence policy decisions.

2009 Elections

Correa won the April 26, 2009 presidential 
elections with 52% of the vote. The significance 
of this victory cannot be overstated ­ the first 
time since Ecuador’s return to civilian rule in 
1979 that a candidate won a high enough 
percentage of the vote to avoid a runoff election.

Most Latin American presidential campaigns are 
multi-party races that require either a runoff 
election between the top two vote getters or a 
congressional decision to select the victor. 
Salvador Allende, for example, won the 1970 
presidential race in Chile with only 36% of the 
vote. Evo Morales’ 2005 victory in Bolivia with 
54% of the vote was the first time in that 
country’s history that a candidate had won the 
election with an absolute majority.

Under Ecuador’s current constitution, in order to 
avoid a second round a candidate must either win 
more than 50% of the vote, or gain at least 40% 
of the vote and outpace the nearest rival by at 
least 10%. In Ecuador’s fragmented and 
contentious political landscape, it is unusual 
for any candidate to poll more than 25% of the 
vote in the initial multi-candidate round.

Correa’s closest competitor in this election was 
the former president Lucio Gutiérrez of the 
centrist Partido Sociedad Patriótica (PSP), who 
won 28% of the vote. Gutiérrez drew most of his 
support from his native Amazonian region, wining 
those provinces by a wide margin, and in 
evangelical Indigenous communities in the central 
highland provinces of Bolívar, Chimborazo and 
Tungurahua. His support rose as the election 
approached when the conservative opposition, 
including the most traditional sectors of the 
Catholic Church grouped into Opus Dei, recognized 
him as the best opportunity to defeat Correa.

Gutiérrez claimed he had evidence of a monstrous 
fraud that denied him victory, although the 
electoral commission rejected the charge. 
International observers, however, criticized 
Correa’s overwhelmingly dominant media presence 
as compromising the fairness of the poll.

The third-place candidate was billionaire banana 
magnate Alvaro Noboa of the right-wing Partido 
Renovador Institucional Acción Nacional (PRIAN), 
who almost won the 2006 elections. In 2009, with 
the right completely discredited but still 
running on the same neoliberal agenda of 
privatization, opening up the country to foreign 
capital, and lowering taxes on the most wealthy, 
he only polled 11%. This was his worst showing in 
four attempts to win the presidency.

The left did not fare any better than the right. 
Martha Roldós, daughter of the progressive 
president who returned Ecuador to civilian rule 
in 1979 but was killed two years later in a 
mysterious plane crash, only won four percent of 
the vote. She ran as a candidate of the Red Ética 
y Democracia (RED), which grouped labor leaders 
and other leftist militants. Her campaign was 
based largely on attacking Correa, without 
successfully presenting an alternative to his “citizen’s revolution” project.

Another leftist candidate Diego Delgado, who 
strongly questioned Correa’s commitment to 
socialism, only gained one percent. Many on the 
left preferred to opt for Correa instead of 
risking a conservative victory. Eight candidates 
in total competed for the country’s highest office.

Many on the left had urged Alberto Acosta, the 
popular former president of the constituent 
assembly, to run. When it appeared unlikely that 
he could rally the left against Correa in the 
face of the president’s overwhelming popularity he declined to enter the race.

The Indigenous party Pachakutik did not run a 
presidential candidate, and refused to endorse 
any of the candidates. In the 2006 elections when 
a possible alliance with Correa fell apart, 
Pachakutik ran their standard bearer Luis Macas 
but only polled two percent of the vote.

While Correa enjoys majority support from the 
voters, the same is not true for his AP, which 
lost its control over congress. In 2006, Correa 
campaigned without the support of a political 
party or alliances with congressional delegates. 
Three years later, Correa is still having 
difficulty pulling his new party together even 
though he personally remains quite popular.

The January 25, 2009 primaries for legislative 
and local races was fraught with difficulties and 
disorganization. The AP is by no means an 
ideologically homogenous or coherent party, which 
may be its greatest strength as well as its 
greatest weakness. While it incorporates a broad 
range of people, that diversity also threatens to 
pull the party apart into left and right wings.

In the runup to the April vote, Correa 
implemented several populist economic measures, 
such as restructuring the foreign debt, which 
appeared to be largely designed to strengthen the 
electoral fortunes of his congressional allies. 
The AP’s failure to win an overwhelming majority 
in the congressional contests complicates issues, 
particularly since Gutiérrez’s PSP is the second 
largest, and very antagonistic, power.

Even though the AP fell far short of the 
two-thirds majority it enjoyed in the constituent 
assembly, it still remains the largest party in 
the assembly. If it can build alliances with 
smaller leftist parties it might still be able to 
control the decisions. Such alliances are sure to 
be fragile. Nevertheless, the new constitution 
significantly strengthens executive power at a 
cost to the assembly, so losing congressional 
control may not prove so much a liability to 
Correa who could still rule through decrees and referendums.

Traditional parties such as the Partido Social 
Cristiano (PSC) continue to lose support. In 
fact, all the parties that largely defined the 
return to civilian rule in 1979 and actively 
contested power over the last 30 years the PSC, 
the Izquierda Democrática (ID), the Democracia 
Popular-Democracia Cristiana (DP), Partido 
Roldosista Ecuatoriano (PRE) -– have now largely disappeared.

The PSC did not run a presidential candidate, 
instead focusing its energies on congressional 
and municipal elections. In the coastal 
commercial port city of Guayaquil which has long 
been a bastion of opposition to Correa’s 
left-populist government, the conservative PSC 
mayor Jaime Nebot easily won re-election.

Even in Guayaquil, however, political allegiances 
fall out along class lines, with poor people 
strongly supporting Correa, including many of 
those who voted for Nebot as mayor. Reflecting 
deep-seated regional divisions, the AP’s Augusto 
Barrera easily won election as mayor of Quito.

Indigenous Movements in Opposition

Much of Correa’s support comes from urban 
professionals. Despite his seemingly leftist 
credentials, Ecuador’s leftist Indigenous 
movement has moved deeply into the anti-Correa 
camp. Because of his support for a new mining law 
that advocates resource extraction, Indigenous 
activists have criticized Correa for ruling with 
a neoliberal agenda. Furthermore, under Correa’s 
governance Indigenous movements have become 
increasingly fragmented, with militants accusing 
the president of attempting to destroy their organizational capacity.

The largest and best known Indigenous 
organization is the Confederation of Indigenous 
Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), founded in 
1986 as an umbrella group of regional Indigenous 
organizations intended to represent all 
Indigenous peoples in Ecuador. CONAIE emerged on 
the national scene through a 1990 uprising for 
land and Indigenous rights that shook the country’s white elite to its core.

Perhaps the most militant Indigenous organization 
in Ecuador is CONAIE’s highland regional 
affiliate Ecuarunari, the Confederation of the 
Peoples of the Kichwa Nationality of Ecuador. 
Ecuarunari has consistently run to the left of 
Correa, challenging him for his failure to make a 
clean break with Ecuador’s neoliberal past. These 
organizations continue to press their agenda in a 
variety of ways, including with a proposed water 
law to conserve and protect water resources.

At an April 2 assembly, CONAIE made its position 
crystal clear in a resolution which stated that 
“Correa’s government was born from the right, 
governs with the right, and will continue to do 
so until the end of his time in office.” They 
condemned the government for creating 
organizations parallel to CONAIE, and stated that 
they would evict anyone from their organization 
who occupied positions in the government or 
worked with Correa’s electoral campaign due to 
“their lack of respect for our organizational process.”

In particular, CONAIE targeted Correa’s 
extractive policies, and especially large-scale 
mining and petroleum exploration efforts “because 
they go against nature, Indigenous peoples, it 
violates the constitution, and threatens the 
governance of the sumak kawsay.” They were eager 
to use Correa’s constitution as a tool to combat 
what they saw as his abusive policies. 
(“Resoluciones de la asamblea ampliada CONAIE 2 
de abril del 2009,” 
<http://www.conaie.org/es/ge_comunicados/2009/0402.html>www.conaie.org/es/ge_comunicados/2009/0402.html) 


CONAIE stated that as an organization they would 
not support any presidential candidate, despite 
earlier conversations the leftist Martha Roldós. 
Refusing to support a presidential candidate is 
an explicit reversal of a policy in previous 
elections to support a candidate because 
otherwise campaigns would prey on rural 
communities to gain the Indigenous vote.

In 1995, CONAIE helped found Pachakutik as a 
political movement for Indigenous peoples and 
their allies to contest for electoral office. A 
short-lived alliance with Gutiérrez in 2003, 
however, was such a horrific experience that 
CONAIE and Pachakutik remained very shy of 
entering into another such similar alliance. 
Nevertheless, they did urge support for local and 
congressional candidates running under the Pachakutik banner.

Historically, Pachakutik has fared much better in 
local races. In this election, however, they 
suffered significant losses to the AP, and barely 
survived with only one seat in the national assembly.

In addition to CONAIE and its regional affiliate 
Ecuarunari, two competing Indigenous 
organizations are the National Confederation of 
Peasant, Indigenous and Negro Organizations 
(FENOCIN) and the Council of Evangelical 
Indigenous Peoples and Organizations of Ecuador 
(FEINE). FENOCIN has its roots in the Catholic 
Church’s attempts in the 1960s to draw support 
away from the communist-affiliated Ecuadorian Federation of Indians (FEI).

FENOCIN broke with the church and became much 
more radical in the 1970s, assuming a socialist 
position. Today it is allied with Correa, and 
some of its principle leaders including president 
Pedro de la Cruz serve as AP deputies. FEINE 
tends to be much more conservative, and recently 
has allied with Lucio Gutiérrez.

In the past, the three organizations (CONAIE, 
FENOCIN, FEINE) have sometimes collaborated to 
advance Indigenous interests, and at other times 
bitterly competed with each other for allegiance 
of their Indigenous base. Currently they are 
perhaps as fractured as they ever have been.

Twenty-first Century Socialism

Correa has been very eager to speak of socialism 
of the 21st century, but has never been very 
clear what he means by this term. During a 
January 2009 trip to Cuba, Correa rejected the 
“dogmas history has defeated” including “the 
class struggle, dialectical materialism, the 
nationalization of all property, the refusal to 
recognize the market.” (“Correa attempts to 
define modern socialism,” Latin American Weekly 
Report, WR-09-02, January 15, 2009: 3)

Discarding key elements traditionally associated 
with socialism while failing to identify 
alternative visions raises questions as to what 
exactly Correa means by 21st-century socialism.

Hugo Chávez in Venezuela has faced similar 
criticisms. At the 2005 World Social Forum in 
Porto Alegre, Brazil where Chávez first spoke of 
the Venezuelan revolution as socialist, he said 
that new solutions must be more humanistic, more 
pluralistic, and less dependent on the state. 
Nevertheless, both Chávez and Correa have relied 
on strong governmental control in order to advance their political agendas.

Indigenous intellectuals and their close allies 
such as economist Pablo Dávalos argue that once 
one looks beyond the rhetoric of socialism of the 
21st century, regional integration, and the 
Bolivarian dream of a united Latin America, the 
reality on the ground often looks quite different.

Yes, there has been state intervention in the 
economy, most notably in important areas such as 
health and education. But the basic economic 
model remains capitalist in its orientation. Not 
only does Correa continue to rely on extractive 
enterprises to advance Ecuador, but he uses the 
repressive power of the state to attack anyone 
who dares to challenge his policies, including 
presenting dissidents with charges of terrorism.

In one of the most high profile cases, Correa 
sent the military into Dayuma in the eastern 
Amazon in search of “terrorists” who had opposed 
his extractive policies. The environmental NGO 
Acción Ecológica also faced a threat of removal 
of legal status, seemingly because of their 
opposition to Correa’s petroleum policies. When 
faced with a massive outcry, Correa quickly 
backpedaled, claiming that the government was 
simply moving its registration to a different 
ministry where it more logically belonged.

Although AP managed to liquidate the previous 
political system and emerged with a leftist 
discourse, Dávalos argued that “in reality it 
represented a continuation of neoliberalism under 
other forms.” This is clear in its themes of 
decentralization, autonomy, competition, and 
privatization.” Correa continued to follow 
traditional clientalistic and populist policies 
far removed from what could be reasonably seen as 
radical or as a socialist reconstruction of society.

Dávalos concludes that in no sense is Correa a 
leftist, nor could his government be identified 
as a progressive. Rather, he “represents a 
reinvention of the right allied with extractive 
and transnational enterprises.” (Pablo Dávalos, 
“Alianza Pais o la reinvencion de la derecha,” 
<http://alainet.org/active/29776>http://alainet.org/active/29776).

After Correa’s victory, Luis Fernando Sarango, 
rector of the Amawtay Wasi Indigenous University, 
criticized the president’s talk of radicalizing 
his programs. “What socialism of the twenty-first 
century?” Sarango asked. “What about a true 
socialism, because we have seen almost nothing of 
this of the twenty-first century.” Instead, 
Sarango proposed “a profound change in structures 
that permits the construction of a plurinational 
state with equality, whether it is called 
socialism or not.” (Boletin Digital Universidad 
Intercultural Amawtay Wasi 12, May 2009: 2)

CONAIE leader and 2006 Pachakutik presidential 
candidate Luis Macas criticized Correa for 
pursuing a “citizen’s revolution” as part of a 
fundamentally liberal, individualistic model that 
did not provide a fundamental ideological break 
with the neoliberal past. In contrast, Indigenous 
movements pressed in the 2006 electoral campaign 
for a “constituent revolution” to rewrite the 
structures of government to be more inclusive.

Correa stole the thunder from Indigenous 
militants in also pressing for a new 
constitution, and even going one step farther in 
granting CONAIE their long-standing demand to 
have Ecuador declared a pluri-national country. 
It is not without reason that CONAIE resents 
Correa for taking over issues and occupying spaces that they previously held.

At the same time, Correa holds those to his left 
hostage because criticizing him plays into the 
hands of the oligarchy who are equally anxious to attack him from the right.

At the World Social Forum

In January 2009, Correa joined his fellow leftist 
Latin American presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da 
Silva of Brazil, Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Evo 
Morales of Bolivia, and Fernando Lugo of Paraguay 
in a meeting with representatives of Vía 
Campesina, an international network of rural 
movements, at the World Social Forum (WSF) in the 
Brazilian Amazonian city of Belém.

Of the five, Correa was the president with the 
weakest links to civil society. Lula and Morales, 
of course, were labor leaders before becoming 
president. Lugo was a priest, influenced by 
liberation theology, who worked in rural 
communities. Chávez rose through the military 
ranks and used that experience to cultivate his popular support.

Correa, in contrast, comes out of the academic 
world, but of the five presidents at the forum he 
presented the deepest and most serious analysis 
of the current economic crisis. He began with a 
challenge to neoliberalism and the Washington 
Consensus. “We’re living a magic moment, one of new leaders and governments.”

Correa noted that capitalism is commonly 
associated with efficiency, whereas socialism 
emphasizes justice. Nevertheless, Correa argued, 
socialism is both more just and efficient than 
capitalism. Latin American countries need 
national development plans in order to advance, 
and Ecuador’s new constitution was part of that process.

He appealed to support for Indigenous cultural 
projects, the Pachamama (mother earth), and 
repeated the now common call for the sumak 
kawsay, to live well, not better. We need to be 
responsible for the environment, Correa said, and 
conserve resources for the next generation.

Capitalism is in crisis, Correa argued, and Latin 
America is in search of new models, one that 
would bring dignity to Latin American peoples. 
Even though Ecuador has resisted joining 
Venezuela’s Bolivarian Alternative for the 
Americas (ALBA), for which Chávez publicly chided 
Correa at the forum, Correa still called for 
Latin American integration, for a United States of Latin America.

“We are in times of change,” Correa concluded. 
“An alternative model already exists, and it is 
the socialism of the twenty-first century.” Much 
of his rhetoric echoed that of the dominant 
discourse at the forum that has fundamentally 
shifted sentiments away from neoliberal policies.

Correa also seemed to be the most eager of the 
five to employ populist discourse in order to 
identify himself as with “the people.” Correa 
spoke favorably of Indigenous movements and the 
history of exclusion that Afro-Ecuadorians have 
faced. All this came in the face of his 
increasingly tense relations with social 
movements, particularly over his determination to 
build Ecuador’s economy on resource extraction.

Correa has not responded well to criticism, 
condemning what he terms as “infantile” 
Indigenous activists and environmentalists. At 
the closing of the Indigenous tent three days 
after the presidential presentations, longtime 
leader Blanca Chancoso denounced the “nightmare” 
that they were living with Correa who was 
undertaking resource extraction “at all costs.”

Perhaps the only current Latin American president 
broadly identified with the left who would have 
received more vigorous denunciations at the forum 
is Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, who in 
particular has engaged in pitched battles with women’s movements.

Many Lefts

Following Chávez’s lead in Venezuela, Correa has 
sought to build his popularity on the basis of 
“petro populism,” which uses income from oil 
exports to fund social programs. But the fall of 
the price of oil threatens to put those programs 
at risk. At the same time, a growing inflation 
rate threatens to undermine some of his government’s accomplishments.

Although Correa talks openly of embracing a 
socialism for the 21st century, he has made no 
move to nationalize industries. Building his 
government on economic development without proper 
concern for the environment and people’s rights 
has cost him support, while gaining him the label 
of “pragmatic” from the business class.

On the other hand, Correa does follow through 
with enough of his policy proposals to assure his 
continued popular support. He promised not to 
renew the U.S. Forward Operating Location (FOL) 
lease on the Manta airbase when it comes due this 
fall, and it appears that Washington is 
proceeding ahead with his wishes to withdraw.

Last December, Correa defaulted on more than $3 
billion in foreign bonds, calling the foreign 
debt illegal and illegitimate because they had 
been contracted by military regimes. Many people 
rallied to his defense, saying that he is 
defending the country’s sovereignty. In addition 
to tripling spending on education and health 
care, Correa has increased subsidizes for single 
mothers and small farmers. These steps played very well with his base.

Despite Correa’s attempts to mimic Chávez’s 
strategies, his policies are not nearly as 
radical as those of his counterpart. Of the many 
lefts that now rule over Latin America, Correa 
represents a moderate and ambiguous position 
closer to that of Lula in Brazil or the 
Concertación in Chile rather than Chávez’s 
radical populism in Venezuela or Morales’ Indigenous socialism in Bolivia.

The danger for popular movements is a populist 
threat with Correa exploiting the language of the 
left but fundamentally ruling from the right. It 
is in this context that a mobilized and engaged 
social movement, which historically in the 
Ecuadorian case means an Indigenous movement, 
remains important as a check on a personalistic 
and populist government. If Correa follows 
through on any of the hopeful promises of his 
government, it will be due to this pressure from below and to the left.

Correa continues to enjoy an unusually large 
amount of popular support in a region which 
recently has greeted its presidents with a high 
degree of good will only to have the populace 
quickly turn on its leaders who inevitably rule 
against their class interests. Chávez (and, to a 
certain extent, Evo Morales in Bolivia) have 
bucked this trend by retaining strong popular 
support despite oligarchical attempts to undermine their governments.

Correa is a charismatic leader, but in the 
Ecuadorian setting charisma does not secure 
longevity. José María Velasco Ibarra, Ecuador’s 
classic caudillo and populist, was president five 
times, but was removed from four of those when he 
failed to follow through on his promises to the 
poor. In recent history, Abdalá Bucaram was 
perhaps the most charismatic leader, but he 
lasted only seven months in power after winning 
the 1996 elections. Charisma alone does not assure political stability.

In the wake of Ecuador quickly running through 
ten chief executives in 10 years, Correa appears 
positioned to remain in power for 10 years if he 
can maintain his current coalition to win 
reelection in 2013. Correa has also said that it 
will take 80 years for his “citizens’ revolution” to change the country.

In quickly moving Ecuador from being one of Latin 
America’s most unstable countries to maintaining 
a strong hold over executive power, Correa 
appears to have been able to mimic Chávez’s 
governing style. Whose interests this power 
serves, and particularly whether it will be used 
to improve the lives of historically marginalized 
subalterns, remains an open question.




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