In 2015, Rafael Correa, the former president of Ecuador, officially passed a constitutional amendment which, in addition to a few auxiliary adjustments, formally eliminated presidential term limits. Lawmakers who approved the measure did so under the terms that Correa would step aside for the 2017 election - which he did. However, it was widely expected that Correa was simply biding his time before returning for another chance at the executive seat in 2021, which he could potentially hold indefinitely, thanks to the referendum.
It would seem that Correa had also successfully prepared for his voluntary absence from the presidential office, hand picking his former vice president, Lenín Moreno, to run and uphold the projects of their party, Alianza PAÍS, as president.
After Moreno just barely grabbed the advantage over his opponent in the 2017 election, most Ecuadorians were convinced that they were simply going to witness another term of policies typical to Correa and his counterparts in Alianza PAÍS. Instead, this month Lenín Moreno passed a referendum which may ultimately end his predecessor’s political career.
The referendum’s most debated component is its call to overturn Correa’s decision for limitless terms. Two other pieces also seem to undermine Correa’s power in the government. The first is a decision to prohibit anybody charged with corruption from holding public office. This move, while not aimed directly at Correa, would restrict some of his allies, like Jorge Glas, from the political arena. The second would eliminate the “Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control,” which has the ability to fire and hire the attorney general, electoral authorities and judges, and without its existence Moreno would be free to choose his own members of the council (Wyss 2018).
It also tackles a few other issues, among them the elimination of the statute of limitations on sex crimes against minors, the elimination of the capital gains tax on real estate, limitations on oil exploration in Yasuní, the home of an indigenous group living in voluntary isolation, and the halt of mining in protected areas (Wyss 2018).
The action comes as a serious blow to Correa, who was once seen by many as the salvation of Ecuador in a tumultuous period of political instability; in the 10 years preceding his election in 2006, the country saw no less than seven different presidents (BBC News 2013). And despite the global financial crisis in 2008, Correa was able to return Ecuador to its pre-recession output in just one year (unlike the United States, which required four years to do the same). This came as an especially unexpected outcome, given that the price of Ecuador’s main export, oil, fell 79 percent, ultimately leading to a $3.5 billion USD trade deficit the following year (Ruales 2017).
The recovery came after Correa’s hotly debated decision to reform the Ecuadorian financial system and retrieve $2 billion USD of reserves from overseas to fund loans for housing, agriculture and infrastructure in an economic stimulus (Ruales 2017).
Such efforts by the former president helped to benefit, above all, the average Ecuadorian, with results like improved access to healthcare, a decrease in malnutrition, an expanded social security program, and an increase in the minimum wage from $160 USD a month to $366 USD. These changes did not disturb the unemployment rate, which was actually one of the lowest reported in Latin America in 2015 at 4.3 percent (Ruales 2017).
Of course, all of these changes were not without opposition, particularly from the established elites in the country. After closing the U.S. military base in Manta, transferring possession of natural resources from multinationals to the state, and cancelling Ecuador’s international debt, Correa was met with a violent, but short-lived coup in 2010, in which he was held hostage in a hospital. It was later discovered that the United States had funded the policemen and opposition groups through USAID to remove Correa from power (teleSUR 2016). Although the rest of the former president’s terms ended without another serious counteraction, in 2015 unrest again began to build among the Ecuadorian elite class and right wing members.
Such a trend has been visible across nearly all of Latin America in recent years. The so-called “pink tide” of the region, during which leftist governments enjoyed the profits from a commodities boom between 2000 and 2011 to fund various social projects and infrastructure investments, was only successful as long as the reductions in income inequality and other improvements did not encroach on the incomes of the upper-class citizens. This model of commodity dependency left an entrance for conservative parties to regain power the moment prices dropped, as seen in a shift towards right policies in countries like Argentina and Brazil.
In addition, some experts, like Linda Farthing and Thea Riofrancos from the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), speculate that parties like Alianza PAIS, which were created only with the intention of electing candidates like Rafael Correa, do not have the democratic functions necessary to continue placing successful entrants on the ballot.
From this perspective, it is possible that Moreno is simply trying to appease conservative Ecuadorians and their representatives in office in an effort to keep Alianza PAÍS and its leftist counterparts alive. With the rest of Latin America suddenly shying away from left-wing policies, it just may be that Moreno’s allowances to the right are necessary to his party’s survival. Of course, it is not so likely that Rafael Correa will see it that way.
Works Cited
Wyss, Jim. 2018. “He was once Latin America’s most popular president. Now he may face ‘political death’.” 1 February. Miami Herald. Available to read here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/article197884564.html [Accessed 15 February 2018].
BBC News. 2013. “Profile: Ecuador’s Rafael Correa.” 27 February. BBC Latin America. Available to read here: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-11449110 [Accessed 15 February 2018].
Ruales, Vanessa. 2017. “Rafael Correa: The Ecuadorian Dream.” 6 June. Harvard Political Review. Available to read here: http://harvardpolitics.com/world/rafael-correa-the-ecuadorian-dream/ [Accessed 15 February 2018].
teleSUR. 2016. “Ecuador’s Citizens’ Revolution: Retaking Power from the Old Elites.” 25 November. teleSUR. Available to read here: https://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/Ecuadors-Citizens-Revolution-Transformed-a-Nation--20150113-0022.html [Accessed 15 February 2018].
Farthing, Linda & Riofrancos, Thea N. 2017. “The State of the Left in Latin America: Ecuador and Bolivia After the Pink Tide.” 19 July. NACLA. Available to read here: https://nacla.org/news/2017/07/20/state-left-latin-america-ecuador-and-bolivia-after-pink-tide [Accessed 13 February 2018].
