Crisis in Ecuador: who's in charge here?

On February 5, nearly 3 million Ecuadorans - about one-quarter of the population - demonstrated in the streets against the president they had elected the previous July. Abdala Bucaram had embarrassed them by his crassness - he was pictured widely with a showgirl on his lap - and had outraged the entire nation which sensed a thinly disguised effort to establish a family-based kleptocracy. The demonstrators carried signs that read, "Too much circus, too little bread." Even the generally conservative Catholic church was thrust into a public role the previous week when the cathedral in Quito was occupied by antigovernment protestors from the indigenous movement and when individual religious, with the tacit approval of the hierarchy, spoke out against the government. On February 2, the Jesuits had published a half-page ad in the Quito daily, El Comercio, declaring that "we can no longer remain quiet." Their statement called for the church to "openly condemn the direction this government has decided to take" and encouraged "Ecuadorian Christians to demonstrate their disagreement and to seek alternatives based on the gospel of Jesus Christ."

I was in Ecuador at the time of the nationwide protest; it exemplified Latin American magic realism at full tilt. On February 5, Congress approved a motion to remove Bucaram for medical incapacity. For the next five days there were three claimants to the presidency: Bucaram, Vice-president Rosalia Arteaga, and the president of the Congress, Fabian Alarcon. As there was no way to decide among them since the Constitution is ambiguous on the issue and there is no independent judiciary, the military brokered an agreement. First Arteaga was installed as president; then, three days later, Congress got its turn, choosing Alarcon as interim president for the next eighteen months.

For several weeks following Bucaram's departure, newspapers competed to disclose the ineptitude and corruption of his administration. Any new administration is likely to be an improvement, but many difficulties lie ahead. The three major political parties refused to enter the new Alarcon government, and the "social movements" that had played a major role in opposing Bucaram broke with Alarcon when he failed to deliver on cabinet appointments. How ironic that one of the positive international accomplishments of the Reagan-Bush era, the expansion of electoral democracy in Latin America, might be threatened by popular movements acting outside the bounds of electoral democracy. And there are other elements in the Ecuadorian situation that bear monitoring as well.

A precipitating factor in the Bucaram ouster was widespread cynicism in Ecuador over politics in general. Corruption, of course, is not new in the country. In the previous administration, the vice-president had to flee the country after accusations of misuse of funds. But Bucaram, elected largely for his fiery critiques of the Ecuadoran oligarchs, soon made corruption overt and pervasive, with benefit going to his own party and enriching his family.

Another contributor to the unrest was widespread opposition to the neoliberal economic policies that Bucaram ineptly adopted, despite his initial populist appeal. He was planning to privatize the telephone system and had proposed an Argentine policy of linking money creation to the amount of dollar or gold reserves, in effect allowing Ecuador's monetary policy to be set by the U.S. Fed. When the government reneged on a longstanding agreement to transfer 15 percent of central-government revenues to regional and municipal governments, a group called the Quito Assembly-composed of business, agricultural, and political leaders - demanded the funding be reinstated. Cutbacks in social expenditures and threats to organized workers energized other groups, including the Coordinator of Social Movements and the United Workers Front, which had been marginalized from national influence in recent years. Even the U.S. ambassador, Leslie Alexander, got into the act, criticizing the level of corruption: He noted a shipment worth $8,000 for which customs officials had the temerity to demand a $12,000 bribe. The final straw was Bucaram's imposition of dramatic price increases for essentials such as cooking gas, electricity, and telephone services. As the president became desperate in the days before February 5, he first reduced the increases and then annulled them. But the moves only succeeded in mobilizing the opposition.

One distinct impression I had about the demonstrations was that the participants were having fun. There were masterful caricatures of the leading villains, theatrical displays of the naked citizens of Ecuador being tormented by "Abdala and the Forty Thieves," loud and poetic chants, housewives banging pots and pans, and even a Macarena composed for the occasion and broadcast widely in the media.

One key factor in the generally peaceful transfer of power was the self-restraint of the Ecuadorian military. The army did not intervene to enforce a state of emergency and suspension of constitutional guarantees proclaimed by Bucaram's minister of defense, and it emerged as the only force capable of forging a political compromise. In the process, it gained a great deal of prestige, a fact that could prove bothersome in the future. For the military already sees itself as a separate, quasi-independent power, and conducts a number of economic activities on its own behalf, including sponsoring educational institutions that cater to civilians. These developments represent a gathering cloud over the future of Ecuadorian democracy.

As Ecuador prepares for new national elections seventeen months from now, tensions can be expected to rise. The February protests evidenced deep structural weaknesses in Ecuador's political institutions: ambiguities in the Constitution about presidential succession; the absence of an independent judiciary; the politicization of oversight agencies; and the growing independence of the military. Agreement has been reached that some of these issues need to be addressed, yet there is no assurance that fundamental, systemic change will occur. Were the energy of February's street-democracy protests combined with a real plan for reform, and perhaps a good dose of liberation theology, some fundamental problems might be dealt with. But such vision and resolve seem to be lacking.

Kenneth P. Jameson is professor of economics at the University of Utah.