“The long neoliberal night that has done us so much harm is over at last,”
said Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s President-elect, after winning a crushing
victory over his right-wing opponent Álvaro Noboa.
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2474762,00.html
Victory for Left in Ecuador
“The long neoliberal night that has done us so much harm is over at last,”
said Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s President-elect, after winning a crushing
victory over his right-wing opponent Álvaro Noboa.
The full extent of Mr Correa’s triumph in Sunday’s run-off election will
not be known until tomorrow, but will exceed the expectations of his most
optimistic supporters. Fears that fraud would be used to thwart him have
proved to be unfounded.
A self-confident American educated economist, Mr Correa, 43, has promised
“21st-century socialism”. To American ears that has inauspicious echoes of
President Chávez of Venezuela. Mr Correa conceded that he admired Mr
Chávez, but insisted that he was his own man. He has confirmed that he will
not sign the free-trade accord that the US has been promoting, arguing that
it would ruin small farmers. He reiterated that the US Air Force would have
to vacate its base on the Pacific coast when the present arrangement comes
up for renewal in 2008, and indicated that he might suspend payments on
Ecuador’s foreign debt if there were more urgent spending priorities such
as health, education and welfare.
Yet Mr Correa offset his defiance with soothing assurances: the US dollar
would remain Ecuador’s currency for his four-year term, and foreign oil
companies would play a big role in expanding production of the country’s
main revenue-generator. Having opposed the adoption of the dollar by a
previous government, he agreed that dropping it now would bring economic
instability.
His vision of socialism had more to do with creating large numbers of small
businesses by widening access to cheap credit than expropriating the means
of production, he said.
His success in reassuring small-scale entrepreneurs that he was on their
side seems to have been a big factor in Mr Correa’s unexpectedly
comprehensive victory over Mr Noboa, a banana tycoon.
The greatest cause for concern for the outside world may turn out not to be
Mr Correa’s left-of-centre nationalism but the uncertainty that could arise
from his determination to take on the political establishment by drafting a
new constitution.Ecuador has had 18 constitutions since it gained
independence from Spain in 1830, but Mr Correa insisted that nothing less
would suffice to overthrow what he sees as a corrupt and self-serving
political system that, he believes, has prevented Ecuador from realising
its potential as a country rich in natural and human resources.
His reforming zeal puts him on a collision course with the elected
Congress, which will be dominated by the Opposition when it assembles in
January. He refused to field candidates for his PAIS movement in last
month’s congressional elections.
The President-elect said that one of his first actions would be to
institute the election of a new assembly charged with drafting the
constitution. Members of Congress feel that their popular mandate is just
as valid as Mr Correa’s and have no intention of being supplanted.
Some of his more experienced allies have tried to dissuade him from the
strategy.
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