Elections for Ecuador’s Constituent Assembly

Elements
for and against Rafael Correa

By
Eduardo Dimas                                                  Read Spanish Version

I don’t
want to seem optimistic, but I have the feeling that the result of
the elections in Ecuador to elect the 130 Assembly members who will
write a new Magna Carta will reflect that changes happening in that
country, same as in other Latin American countries.

The fact
is that 3,229 candidates ran for these posts. Mathematically, that
means that 24.76 candidates ran for each seat in the Constituent
Assembly. This gives an idea of the huge division that exists, both
in the right-wing parties and organizations and the left-wing parties
that support the changes promoted by President Rafael Correa.

A
reduced number of candidates would have simplified the campaign and
the eventual counting of the votes. The electoral councils will have
to review 497 lists of contenders, verify the probable votes of 9
million Ecuadoreans, and announce who the winners are. 

Perhaps
for that reason, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal forbade the release
of partial results until the final tally is reached. This is the
fourth time in one year that Ecuadoreans go to the polls. The first
two were to elect the president of the republic and the third to
approve the proposal for a Constituent Assembly, introduced by
Correa.

President
Correa hopes to win this latest election so he can promote reforms
that will end more than a decade of political instability. During
that time, three presidents — Abdalá Bucaram, Jamil Majuad
and Lucio Gutiérrez — had to abdicate their neoliberal
administrations because of mass protests. 

However,
it is not just a question of achieving the country’s political
stability. During his election campaign and after his triumph last
November, Rafael Correa has stressed the writing of a Magna Carta
that will permit Ecuador to take a new course. Ecuador is a country
rich in natural resources, but most of its population live in
poverty.

A
revealing and little known fact is that 10 percent of the population
controls 90 percent of the country’s wealth. Add to this the
exploitation of the transnational corporations in the mining and oil
industries, the nation’s two main economic resources. It is not by
choice that Ecuador is among the Latin American nations with the
greatest inequality in the distribution of wealth. 

To keep
the money from playing a decisive role, as happened in previous
elections, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal forbade privately run
campaigns and allotted US$30 million to enable all the candidates to
announce their programs and plans. To that effect, it paid for radio
and television air space.

Nevertheless,
there have been protests, because apparently not all the candidates
to the Constituent Assembly were given the same opportunities. In
addition, the Institutional Renewal Party National Action (PRIAN) led
by banana magnate and former presidential candidate Álvaro
Noboa handed out medicines and propaganda T-shirts among the poor,
something that was denounced by the rest of the political
organizations. 

Notwithstanding
the fact that the campaigns against the Constituent Assembly could
not prevent these elections, many analysts believe (and with reason,
I think) that the oligarchy and the bourgeoisie, allied to the United
States government, will try to impede the drafting of a new
Constitution. Similar efforts already are being made in Bolivia.

It could
almost be said that the plan is the same. As in Bolivia, we can see a
resumption of the drive for autonomy in Guayaquil, the richest of all
Ecuadorean regions. The price of staple goods has gone up; the media
are waging campaigns against President Correa and his followers, and
an effort is being made — of course — to link Correa to President
Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.

Because
all those plans failed — according to official data, Correa enjoys
an 80 percent volume of popular support — it’s not idle to think
that now his opponents will try to derail the Constituent Assembly.
That depends on the number of seats the Alianza País wins in
these elections.

Some
polls suggest that the Alianza País candidates will win
between 70 and 75 seats in the Constituent Assembly. That would give
the party an absolute majority. However, it remains to be seen — as
in Bolivia — what percentage will be required to approve the
articles of the new Constitution.

As you
may recall, the Constituent Assembly in Bolivia was paralyzed for
more than one month for that very reason. It was a way to hinder the
work of the Assembly, which has been paralyzed since Aug. 15, because
the oligarchy promoted Sucre, the seat of the judiciary branch, as
the capital of Bolivia. It was another pretext to delay approval of
the Magna Carta, which needs to be ready by Dec. 14.

It is
not unlikely, I repeat, that a similar situation will occur in
Ecuador. As I write this article, some anomalies in the voting are
reported, among them the burning of some ballot boxes in the city of
San Francisco, department [province] of Esmeraldas. The Alianza País
Movement does not control the election boards and several of the
party’s principal members have denounced the possibility of fraud at
the polls.

The
Ecuadorean oligarchy and the government of the United States fear
that President Correa — who has place his post at the disposal of
the Constituent Assembly — will gain enough power to carry out the
social reforms he has spoused from the start of his campaign. 

Among
those reforms: to eliminate the neoliberal model that has brought so
much harm to the country; to achieve a more equitable distribution of
the wealth; to nationalize the natural resources. One element that is
not discussed very much — and that runs counter to those objectives
— is that the Ecuadorean economy has been "dollarized"
since 2001.

Under
that system, the monetary mass that permits commercial exchanges and
the general functioning of the economy depends on the shipments of
dollars from the U.S. Federal Reserve. You may recall that one of the
first measures against the Panamanian government, prior to the
invasion of December 1989, was to suspend the shipments of dollars to
Panama, another "dollarized" economy. That caused real
chaos.

That’s a
sword hanging over the Correa administration, which has been unable
to reinstate its national currency (the sucre) because, in Correa’s
own words, that would bring even greater problems to the Ecuadorean
economy. However, it cannot be ruled out that one of Correa’s plans
is to change the method of currency, for basic reasons of
independence.

It only
remains to see the results of these elections for members of the
Constituent Assembly. It seems to me obvious that the people and
government of Ecuador still have major battles to wage in the future.