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Breakdown in national unity evident in Ecuador election


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By Claudio Campuzano
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

October 25, 2002

Ecuadoreans failed to choose a president when they went to the polls on Oct. 20 as no candidate won 50 percent of the vote, leaving the decision to a runoff between the two top candidates on Nov. 27. Nevertheless, two clear trends emerged from the election.

One, already seen in Venezuela, the dissatisfaction of voters with the traditional parties, a phenomenon that has the effect of propelling to the top figures without a political track record, or whose record is having led a coup or violent actions, and who promise to put an end to ills such as corruption, poverty or insecurity with authoritarian governments clothed in populist garb. As a consequence, none of the parties that governed Ecuador in the last quarter century managed to reach the second round.

The other trend, more characteristic of Ecuador itself, is the absolute fragmentation of the vote. Of the two candidates for the presidency that were ahead of another nine, one got barely above 20 percent of the vote and the other 17 percent.

To find a similar situation, one would have to go back to 1988, when candidate Rodrigo Borja got slightly less than 25 percent of the vote and Abdal‡ Bucaram did not reach 18 percent.

Furthermore, there was only a five-point difference this time between the candidate that got the most votes and the one that ended up fifth, something that had not happened since 1978.

The conclusion is clear: the first and foremost task facing whichever candidate wins the second round will be to reconstitute the badly fragmented national unity.

The two surprises in the election were the surge to the top of retired colonel Lucio GutiŽrrez, that opinion polls showed in fourth place, and the second place of banana tycoon, Alvaro Noboa, instead of socialist Le—n Rold—s, that some polls even predicted as winner.

GutiŽrrez burst upon Ecuador's political scene when he joined a January 2000 Indian uprising that, in the midst of one of the biggest economic crisis Ecuador had ever known, toppled unpopular president Jamil Mahuad. GutiŽrrez then transferred power to his army chiefs. They installed then-Vice President Gustavo Noboa (no relation to Alvaro Noboa) who sought to stabilize the economy by switching to the U.S. dollar as Ecuador's currency.

GutiŽrrez, who defines himself as center-left, acknowledges he admires Venezuela's president Hugo Ch‡vez, a left-wing populist and former paratrooper who also led a coup-failed in his case-in 1992 against an unpopular president, but won office in 1999 over the candidates of the traditional parties, also on a platform of fighting corruption and poverty.

As Ch‡vez, GutiŽrrez campaigned dressed in military fatigues and combat boots and got the support of the indigenous movement, left-wing unions and the Communists, as well as of some members of the Socialist Party. Ch‡vez won in a landslide, but it became clear that those leftist forces in Ecuador do not have the strength some observers assigned to them, because they were not able to provide GutiŽrrez with more than one-fifth of the votes.

Noboa set the tone for the runoff campaign when he accused GutiŽrrez of being defined by the support he got from Communists, a charge that GutiŽrrez quickly refuted, But the truth is that it is impossible to know with any certainty which policies would be adopted by either candidate as president.

Noboa, a lawyer and Ecuador's richest individual, thanks to a banana-export empire he inherited from his father, has unabashedly used his personal wealth to win the support of his fellow citizens. His critics accuse him of not having a consistent political agenda.

Noboa ran for the presidency in 1998 as a populist, backed by former president Bucaram, and charged fraud when he was defeated by Mahuad Noboa says he favors tax breaks to attract foreign investment, but will protect the poor by freezing utility rates and fuel prices to keep a lid on the cost of living.

What GutiŽrrez says is not much different. He claims he will woo foreign investment and will seek an International Monetary Fund loan to boost investor confidence.

But an unavoidable reality for either Noboa or GutiŽrrez is that Congress, a body that has been historically contentious in Ecuador, was also affected by political fragmentation, and whoever wins will have to deal with lawmakers from a dozen parties that will not be helpful to the president in the difficult task of getting the country's economy on the path to the growth that is necessary to pull up the 70 percent of the population that is below the poverty line.

Claudio Campuzano (claudio-campuzano@hotmail.com) is U.S, correspondent for the Latin American newsweekly Tiempos del Mundo and editorial page editor of the New York daily Noticias del Mundo. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com

October 25, 2002

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