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The re-election last month of Hugo Chávez as president of Venezuela was no surprise. But few people even recognise the name of his leftist counterpart in Ecuador, Rafael Correa.
ECUADOR has been in state of upheaval for years. As far back as June 1990 a powerful indigenous undercurrent broke surface with unprecedented demonstrations by the Conaie (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador). In the years of rumbling instability that followed, eight heads of state came and went, with the Conaie as the only force in the country capable of mobilising social opinion.
On 21 January 2000, a combination of mass discontent, mobilisation by the indigenous ethnic population and support from a group of army officers (including Colonel Lucio Gutiérrez) led to the fall of President Jamil Mahuad: he had sought to avoid a $7bn bankruptcy and save Ecuador’s financial institutions and so decided to freeze savers’ deposits (1). It seemed briefly that a popular government was in the making. On 22 January, the military intervened, placing power in the hands of the vice-president, Gustavo Noboa, who soon replaced the national currency, the sucre, with the US dollar (2).
The revolt of the year 2000, despite the way it ended, furthered the cause of the indigenous peoples (and of the party they had created, Pachakutic), and of some of the mestizo (3) community. Gutiérrez, an ex-army officer, with his eyes on the October 2002 presidential elections, came forward as “nationalist, progressive, humanist and revolutionary”. His campaign was based on the need “for a second independence”. Pachakutic decided not to field its own candidate and fell in behind Gutiérrez, who took the second round in November 2002. He offered indigenous representatives a place in his government (4). Then he dropped all those around him and signed an agreement with the International Monetary Fund to bring in structural adjustment, alignment with the United States and Colombia, and a pact with Ecuador’s hard-line right, the Social Christian party (PSC).
Pachakutic was less concerned with its political agenda than with negotiations for seats in prominent positions; it made little effort to prevent the appointment of neoliberal ministers. Its leaders cut themselves off from their base and were called “golden ponchos”. The economist Rafael Correa worried: “In terms of economic policy, legitimised the shameful signing of the IMF letter of intent” (5). Gutiérrez had neutralised the indigenous movement through co-option, division and repression. It was not until July 2003 that Pachakutic finally withdrew its representatives from the government. Gutiérrez’s agreements with the IMF and World Bank cut all domestic gas subsidies and led to the privatisation of the national electricity and telecommunication companies. The oil industry waited in the wings (6).
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