[Marxism] A green light to transform Ecuador

[Greg McDonald]

Friday, November 23, 2007
A green light to transform Ecuador


By electing a Constituent Assembly on Sept. 30, Ecuadoreans gave  
President Rafael Correa an ample majority, with which he has carte  
blanche to change the rules of the political-economic game. Although  
badly defeated at the polls, the right immediately stood on war  
footing to oppose the official project: a regulated economy, social  
redistribution, a participative democracy, regional integration,  
"21st-Century socialism". But the winds of change are blowing  
throughout the region.

By Hernando Calvo Ospina Progreso Weekly, 22-28 November, 2007

"Now is the beginning of the challenge of change," says Rocío  
Peralbo, a social communicator and well-known human rights militant.  
"All the conditions are favorable. We won't have anyone else to blame  
if we fail."

The history of Ecuador had not seen a triumph as overwhelming as that  
obtained by the Alianza País movement on Sept. 30. That day, the  
people who must draft a new Constitution were elected. Seventy  
percent of the voters placed their trust on the candidates who share  
the project with President Rafael Correa Delgado. With 80  
representatives out of 130, they will have an absolute majority in  
the Constituent Assembly. Therefore, the chief of state can now "re- 
found the Republic" and activate a model of development that will  
break away from neoliberalism.

Alianza País began as a project in late 2005 "not as a group on  
enlightened people but as a group that fed from the struggles and  
efforts of many social and political sectors," says former Energy and  
Mines Minister and future president of the Constituent Assembly  
Alberto Acosta. In the November 2006 elections the movement took  
Correa, an economist and educator, to the presidency. "We went from  
being specialists in protest to enacting the proposal. With the  
presidency, we had to begin to build."

In his simple office in Carondelet Palace, a colonial-type building  
that is the seat of government, President Correa states: "We have  
begun a 'Citizens Revolution' that must take us to radical, deep and  
swift changes of the structures of this country, because the current  
ones don't work."

Taxi drivers, newspaper vendors, bootblacks, officer workers -- all  
of them have faith in the project led by the president. Ecuador is a  
country that has had eight presidents in 10 years; most of its  
citizens do not trust Congress, which they consider incompetent and  
corrupt. Aware of the Congress' discredit, Alianza País did not  
submit any candidates to the latest legislative elections, choosing  
to put all its bets on the Constituent Assembly.

The results for the Constituent Assembly were a decisive rejection of  
"partidocracy," as President Correa calls that parties that dominated  
the political scene. The vote reflected the collapse of those who  
have really been fiefdoms, groups directed by strongmen without  
ideological support. Monsignor Eugenio Arellano, who was born in  
Spain, has lived in Ecuador for more than 30 years, "always very  
close to the people." For that reason, he says he knows "what 90  
percent of the inhabitants think."

"This new government has conveyed a very big hope to the people: to  
radically improve their living conditions." He says the Ecuadorean  
Church has taken a position: "We must support, accompany, become  
spokesmen for that hope." But, as the popular saying goes, "the road  
twists like a snake."

Ecuador is estimated to have 13 million inhabitants. The National  
Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC) says that in 2006 12.9  
percent of the citizens did not have $1.06 a day to cover their  
nutritional requirements and thus landed in the group of "indigents."  
The average percentage of people who live in chronic poverty is 38.3.  
Sixty percent of the people are underemployed. According to the same  
source, inequality is enormous: the wealthiest sector's consumption  
level is 35.5 percent; the poorest sector's is 1.9 percent. Twenty- 
six percent of the families borrowed money to pay for medical care,  
buy food, pay for education, etc.

The immediate source of resources for the execution of the  
development projects espoused by President Correa is oil. Ecuador is  
the fifth-largest oil producer in Latin America. The oil history in  
this country has been a bit peculiar.

Full: http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2007/11/green-light-to- 
transform-ecuador.html