La edición del sábado 21 de diario español El País trae un perfil del presidente ecuatoriano Rafael Correa. Deja contemplarlo desde distintos ángulos pero, sobre todo, con distancia necesaria. Anota Fernando Gualdoni casi al inicio del texto: Quienes le conocen coinciden en calificarle de íntegro, vehemente, generoso y muy risueño cuando la vida le va bien. Reconocen, sin embargo, ... .
Hay acceso libre al texto y hay como leerlo enteramente aquí.
También el semanario inglés The Economist trae en su número último un comentario sobre el preseidiente Correa y la consulta popular realizada el pasado 15 de abril en la que ganó su propuesta política con más del 80% de votos. Dispongo ese texto en la carpeta de comentarios.
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Ecuador's Rafael Correa.
Tightening his grip
Apr 19th 2007 | BAÑOS AND QUITO.
After Presidents Chávez in Venezuela and Morales in Bolivia, another president in the Andes seeks sweeping powers to remake his country's politics.
THE whole town, it seems, has turned out to watch Rafael Correa and his “itinerant cabinet” follow a donkey around. The donkey, named Alonso and festooned with slogans, leads a long motorcade in a U-shaped path around the centre of Baños, an Ecuadorian mountain resort of some 20,000 people. Three months into his term as Ecuador's president, Mr Correa has taken to travelling around the country, every three weeks or so, dragging a good portion of his cabinet secretaries along with him, in an attempt to bring government closer to the people.
This is just one of the populist measures the former finance minister has adopted since coming to power. Cash transfers to 1.3m of the country's poorest people (out of a total population of 13.4m) have been doubled to $30 a month. A further $100m has been allotted to housing subsidies for the poor. Grants of $350, which are described by the government as “microcredit”, are dished out with abandon. Some $3 billion a year goes on public subsidies for domestic gas, petrol and electricity. Education and health spending have been increased substantially. And, in a move of dubious legality, more than half of Congress has been sacked by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), a body that supports Mr Correa.
The president was visiting Baños a few days before April 15th's referendum on his plan to set up a “constituent assembly” to write a new constitution. He did not give any speeches to the waiting crowds. He didn't need to. Here, as in the rest of the country, the people already adore their young and handsome president. The day before the vote, the news came out that his father had spent three years in prison for drug-smuggling when Mr Correa was a child. But this appears to have had little effect on the referendum, which required a majority of the vote cast for the measure to pass, but attracted a yes vote of over 80%. Only 12% voted against, while a further 6% submitted null or blank ballots (compared with the usual 20-30%).
Mr Correa has clearly struck a chord among the masses in Ecuador. When he says that “happiness, hope and faith” are returning to the country, he is not wholly wrong. But is that hope well-placed? It is hard to find an independent political observer who thinks so. Simón Pachano, a professor at Flacso University in Quito, agrees that changes are necessary but that a constituent assembly is the worst possible way to achieve it. The 134 members of the new assembly, to be chosen in a nationwide vote, are under orders to transform the transform the state's “institutional framework” and write a new constitution within 180 days (extendable by a further 60 days). This will then be put to another nationwide referendum.
The assembly has been endowed with “full powers”, suggesting that it can do pretty much what it likes. Fernando Santos, a former cabinet minister, notes wryly that it could get rid of Congress and crown the president “Rafael the First of the House of Correa”. As the normal checks and balances, such as they are, will not apply to the new assembly, much will depend on its composition. Mr Correa's supporters cannot be guaranteed a majority: several former presidents, such as Lucio Guttiérez and Osvaldo Hurtado, are already positioning their factions. But if Mr Correa does gain sway over the new assembly, he will have complete control over Ecuador.
Foreign investors and the moneyed classes are worried. Capital flight has increased substantially in the last few months. Last year's expropriation of Occidental Petroleum, previously Ecuador's largest foreign investor, has added to their concerns. This was carried out by the former president, but Mr Correa defends the action. Occidental has appealed to the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, an international arbitration body. It is expected to rule in favour of the American oil giant early next month, and to order Ecuador to pay damages of $1 billion-$2 billion. That is a large chunk for a small country whose tax revenues totalled just $4.5 billion last year, with a similar amount coming from oil. Mr Correa might refuse to pay, but this could provoke sanctions.
On arriving in office, Mr Correa railed against paying Ecuador's foreign debt, driving down the market for sovereign bonds. But in February he made a sudden payment of $135m, leading to suspicions that speculators linked to Venezuela had benefited from the government's indecision. Despite his friendship with Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, however, Mr Correa has not hesitated to make moves that could discomfort his oil-laden neighbour. Earlier this month, he signed a deal with Brazil to co-operate in the production of ethanol. Meanwhile, Petroecuador, the Ecuadorian state oil company, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Petrobras, Brazil's state oil company, to exploit ITT, an oilfield representing around a quarter of Ecuador's total oil reserves.
But more than his public spending and other populist policies, it is the growing strength of the president's grip on power that is giving cause for alarm. Last month's ousting, with his blessing, of 57 opposition members of Congress, for seeking to sack the TSE's president in an attempt to block the referendum, is particularly ominous. Though the congressmen were replaced by alternates they themselves had picked, the new deputies have shown themselves loyal to Mr Correa rather than to their own political parties.
This can be explained in part by the president's undeniable charisma. In the town of Pingue, shortly before reaching Baños, Mr Correa attended a gathering of refugees made homeless by the eruption of the Tungurahua volcano a year ago. A big man with the build of a rugby player, Mr Correa sat on the ground to watch schoolchildren perform a play. He then picked up a little girl in his arms and danced with her. She looked delighted. The next day, in Baños, he announced, to rapturous applause, the end of the country's “long dark night of neoliberalism”. All very thrilling—depending on what arrives with the dawn.
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