Ever since August 10, 1979,
when young Jaime Rold6s was
voted into power after nine years
of dictatorship, Ecuador’s
democratic experiment has posed
a difficult challenge. The country’s
first year of constitutional govern-
ment is now past. According to of-
ficial statements, private enter-
prise is consolidating its share of
power thanks to an opening pro-
vided by the government. Already
there are signs of social discon-
tent, political frustration and
worsening living conditions for the
majority of people. And the Armed
Forces frequently hint that they
are prepared to “save the country
from the forces of disorder and
subversion.”
The Military Paves the Way
The Ecuadorean military had
begun preparing for “el
retorno”-the return of civilians to
government-in 1976. Their na-
tionalist illusions had faded, while
civilian sectors, first through their
trade and professional associa-
tions, and then through political
parties, had begun to seize the
political initiative. It was implied
that the “return process” would
lead to a democratic opening and
social reforms. Conditions,
however, led to a different reality.
With the participation of leftist
activists, peasant demands for
agrarian reform made themselves
felt in 1973. In 1975, Ecuador’s
three trade union federations car-
ried out a successful national
strike, followed by a second strike
in 1977 and a widespread work
stoppage by teachers. And
throughout these years, the urban
poor had begun to mobilize for
land and housing. In the words of
Ecuador’s rulers, “social
agitation” was on the rise.
Traditional power groups quick-
ly took charge of the “return pro-
cess” and, together with the mili-
tary, concocted a repressive legal-
political transition arrangement.
New laws regulating elections and
political parties, together with
President Jaime Roldos Assad Bucaram
36 NACLA Reportupdate*update update update
punitive action against the mobiliz-
ed popular sectors, created condi-
tions which assured that the pro-
cess would not run the risk of
opening the way to genuine social
change. The most extreme
manifestation of this was the
massacre of 125 workers at the
AZTRA sugar mill on October 18,
1977.
Roldos: An Unprecedented
Victory
Despite their control over the
return to civilian rule, traditional
power groups did not score an un-
qualified victory when Rold6s was
voted into power.
Following primary elections
which narrowed the presidential
field from six candidates to two,
the electorate faced a choice bet-
ween Sixto Durdn, candidate of
the Right, and Rold6s, who was
supported by what could be called
Ecuador’s political center. In this
context, Rold6s represented the
only kernel of hope for progress
that might benefit the people. This
hope brought out 1.3 million votes
for Rold6s, an unprecedented vic-
tory.
An electoral alliance between
two parties, representing different
political strategies and laced with
personal power struggles, made
the victory possible. Yet that very
alliance assured that the new
government would be divided and
hamstrung.
The first party, Rold6s’ own
Concentration of Popular Forces
(CFP), is today’s expression of
Ecuador’s long populist tradition. It
is a 30-year-old mass electoral
party, defining itself as “national,
anti-feudal and progressive.” Its
powerful leader, Assad Bucaram,
of Lebanese parentage, was
prevented from running for the
presidency in 1978 by an
NovlDec 1980
Ecuadorean law which forbids
candidates who are not natural
citizens. Bucaram was able to
prove his Ecuadorean birth but in
the meantime his political prot6g6
and nephew, Rold6s, was pushed
forward as the party’s candidate.
Soon after his victory, Rold6s
broke with Bucaram.
The CFP’s partner in the
alliance was the Popular
Democratic Party (PDP), the result
of a merger in 1978 between the
Christian Democrats and the “pro-
gressive Conservatives,” a split-off
from the old Conservative Party.
The Popular Democrats have
been evolving toward the political
center.
In agreeing to this alliance as an
electoral expedient, the two par-
ties postponed dealing with their
simmering contradictions.
However, with the reins of power
in their hands (the CFP and PDP
also won a majority of seats in
Parliament), the confrontation
moved to the forefront. The CFP
launched an attack on the PDP in
Congress, calling it “the historical
conflict between those forces
which seek the country’s progress
and those which resist in order to
defend their traditional privileges.”
Oswaldo Hurtado, ideologue and
top leader of the PDP, and Rold6s’
vice-president, had already hurled
the first epithets in 1976, declaring
that the CFP, instead of evolving
and developing its positions, had
“become involuted…a mere instru-
ment for the personal interests of
its new caudillo”–Assad
Bucaram.
Backwardness versus pro-
gress? Or just more political in-
fighting among powerful groups
like all the others the country has
known?
Without denying the existence
of a leadership struggle, even one
within the CFP (i.e. between
Rold6s and Bucaram), this is not
central. The fundamental issue is
that a political regime is struggling
to take shape in Ecuador which
differs from traditional oligarchical
or populist regimes. The character
of the large voter turnout indicates
that a clearly defined reformist
coalition should have come to
power on August 10, 1979. But
these groups have never con-
stituted a coherent force. Neither
was there at the time a grass-roots
social movement which could ef-
fectively challenge a social,
political and economic system so
rife with injustice.
The “21 points”
During the electoral period,
presidential candidate Rold6s
(CFP) and his running-mate
Oswaldo Hurtado (PDP) cam-
paigned on a 21-point program.
The 21 points comprised a general
list of goals which gave rise to the
supposition that the two young
personalities would form a refor-
mist government. But neither
before nor still less after their vic-
tory were the allied forces able to
agree on strategies or concrete
plans of action to develop the pro-
gram.
For example, the eighth point
advocates: “rural development
and the advancement of the peas-
antry through agrarian reform, col-
onization, provision of technical
and financial services, and the
construction of local roads.”
Ecuador’s countryside has
been substantially transformed in
recent years, thanks to the slow
decomposition of traditional social
relations and the formation of
medium and large-sized business
units. Despite two agrarian reform
laws (one promulgated in 1964
37update*update*update update
and the other in 1973), the tragic
reality remains one of a mass of
peasants on the fringes of land, ir-
rigation and credit services, still
exploited as day laborers or tenant
farmers.
The eighth point does not ade-
quately address this reality. In fact,
the new government’s concrete
response has been to exacerbate
conditions. The state has sup-
ported the development of large
companies producing goods for
export. Prices have been reviewed
or raised on agricultural goods,
without solving the problem of in-
termediaries or strengthening the
state commercial network which
exists, in a weak form, to benefit
small producers. The state has
stopped expropriating land and
distributing it to marginal sectors
in the countryside. And not least
important has been the political
repression of those peasant
organizations which have taken de
facto measures, called by the
authorities “invasions” of private
property.
A Developmentalist
Government
In March 1980, the government
issued its “National Development
Plan” for a 4-year period. Instead
of concretizing the 21-point pro-
gram, it rather presents a broad
exposition of development policy.
In synthesis, the main aspects
of the Plan include the following:
*The road to development: en-
couragement of non-traditional ex-
ports. This is intended to promote
a substantial influx of foreign ex-
change which would allow the
country to industrialize and
displace imports. From this view-
point, industrialization and import
substitution are synonymous with
national independence from world
38
capitalist centers.
Because of competition on the
international market, however,
non-traditional Ecuadorean ex-
ports will have to keep their prices
low by restricting benefits to
workers.
*Opening up to private capital:
If industrialization is to be the axis
of the new economy, it will be
dominated by private in-
vestment-61 %, according to the
Plan. And, contrary to the Political
Constitution, which stipulates that
strategically important sectors like
natural resources, public services
and branches of social interest are
reserved for the state, the Plan
opens the door to private invest-
ment in the exploitation of oil, gas,
minerals and forests, as well as
steel and auto production.
eSocial policy: Separating
“economic policy” and “social
policy” as two areas of state ad-
ministration, the plan defines its in-
dustrial and occupational pro-
grams in terms of first economic
and secondarily social priorities.
Thus, 490,000 new jobs will be
created by 1984. In the meantime,
however, 1.2 million people will re-
main unemployed.
By 1984, the Plan foresees the
construction of 300,000 housing
units, for which private investment
should provide about U.S. $1.65
billion; state investment would
total only U.S. $13.2 million. There
is no doubt that this distribution of
investments will have an effect on
the quality and final prices of hous-
ing. And the country’s housing
deficit, which has now reached
800,000 units, will persist.
Achievements of the
Government
It would seem that the Rold6s
government’s immediate purpose
is to fulfill the bargains made with
traditional power groups. This has
meant shaping his policy to the
detriment of popular hopes for
change. The official line has been
to “encourage economic develop-
ment in the function of social
justice.” But at the rate things are
going, it seems inevitable that the
tendency towards the concentra-
tion of wealth and the country’s
dependency will only grow
stronger.
Beginning in August 1980, the
policy of stimulating firms which
produce basic necessities ac-
quired primary importance. It must
be recognized, however, that this
has been state policy since 1975,
in milk products for example.
Nonetheless, Ecuador’s private in-
dustry has preferred to produce
for export rather than satisfy inter-
nal demand and thus lower the
cost of wage goods. Secondly, at
the same time as it has provided
credit and tax incentives for
private firms, the government has
seen fit to raise final prices.
It is true that in January 1980,
the minimum wage was raised by
100%. (It had remained stationary
since 1976, during which time the
real value of the Ecuadorean
sucre had fallen to 30 centavos.)
Together with the rise in wages, a
price freeze was decreed on basic
necessities and services. Despite
this, prices have continued to rise
illegally (on such items as milk,
sugar, bread, green vegetables,
meat, medicine, gasoline,
transportation, rent, education…)
to reflect the general “policy of
real prices” which the employers’
associations have agreed on with
the government.
In another area of the economy,
the government’s oil policy seems
to be a positive exception. In the
NACLA Reportupdate*update update update
current situation, where world
hydrocarbon reserves are
saturated, a marginal oil-producing
country like Ecuador is in a difficult
position. The foreign exchange
which oil brings in makes up the
most important component in the
budget. Because of this, both Tex-
aco, associated with the
Ecuadorean State Petroleum
Corp. (CEPE), and the companies
which buy the oil have mounted a
ferocious campaign to make the
government lower the price to
under U.S. $32. Up to now, CEPE
has been selling oil at around U.S.
$33/barrel, although at the begin-
ning of the year the price was up
around $36.
Another aspect of the problem
concerns contracting services to
prospect for new reserves. The
traditional policy was to grant con-
cession areas to the companies,
and pay for their services in oil.
With the current CEPE administra-
tion, contracting is at the com-
pany’s risk and payment is in
money. So one can at least speak
of an oil policy which safeguards
the interests of the state.
The Current Legislature
Beginning on August 10, 1980,
when the second set of regular
Congressional sessions began,
and new leaders were to be
elected, the political situation in
the country changed slightly. By
January 1980, the belligerence
between the executive and
legislative branches which
characterized the first set of ses-
sions had led Rold6s to threaten to
call for a plebiscite-a con-
stitutional recourse to reform the
political charter-and, by winning
it, to dissolve the Congress. Rold6s
never called the plebiscite. He
preferred to deal with some of the
NovlDec 1980
belligerent sectors in Congress
directly, with the intention of
isolating the CFP bloc led by
Assad Bucaram.
He succeeded in doing this by
holding “internal” congressional
elections on August 10, so that by
the end of his first year in office
there was a new legislative majori-
ty in the House of Represen-
tatives. This is composed mainly of
three sectors: the deputies who
left the Bucaram-dominated CFP
and defined themselves as
roldocistas, the Christian
Democratic deputies, and those
from the Democratic Left (a party
affiliated with the Socialist Interna-
tional). The new majority bloc has
barely more than the necessary
simple majority of seats, thus
there is the constant risk of losing
votes, as has happened on two re-
cent occasions.
This new majority has not suc-
ceeded in implementing its goal of
activating a “legislature for
change.” By the end of September
not one major law had been pass-
ed. Why? On the one hand, the
heterogeneous majority was in a
better position to dethrone
Bucaram than to produce positive
legislation. On the other, the
Ecuadorean Right knew how to
recoup the situation and launch
some surprising offensives by ex-
ercising ruthless scrutiny over the
executive. The Right’s current tac-
tic of putting Cabinet ministers on
the dock may well weaken the
government to the point that when
municipal elections are held in
December, it will have lost its im-
age as benefactor in the eyes of
the people.
International
Compensation
The government of Jaime
Rold6s has managed to be more
aggressive in its foreign outlook
than its domestic ac-
complishments. Soon after taking
power, Rold6s developed good
relations with the Sandinista
government in Nicaragua. In the
United Nations, Ecuador confirm-
ed its support for the Palestinian
people. And the country played a
leading role within the Andean
bloc in censuring the anti-
democratic military coup in
Bolivia, though it stopped short of
breaking diplomatic relations with
the Garcia Meza regime. In rela-
tion to El Salvador, however, the
presence of Christian Democrats
in the Ecuadorean government
has prevented it from taking a
more clearly condemnatory
stance toward the military-
Christian Democratic junta.
The foreign policy outlined by
Jaime Rold6s has attempted to de-
fend the democratic rights of other
peoples. This is a great deal for a
regime which has shown itself to
be a weak government-weak in
that the majority of Ecuadoreans
who, according to Rold6s, “have
more confidence in my intentions
than in my actions.” do not par-
ticipate in the decisions that deter-
mine the course of the new
government, despite the govern-
ment’s formal adherence to the
rules of representative
democracy. And weak because
rather than resolve the “historical
conflict” by means of democratic
participation by the people, Rold6s
has chosen to deal with it by tradi-
tional means, by making costly
deals with the powerful sectors in
dispute.
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