[Marxism] Ecuador: Clash between the old and the new

["Stuart Munckton" <stuartmunckton@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/719/37328
Ecuador: Clash of old and new Federico Fuentes, Caracas
27 July 2007


*Denouncing the congress as "rubbish" and a "national disgrace", left-wing
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa called on the upcoming constituent
assembly, for which there will be elections held on September 30, to
dissolve the body, which is widely viewed as corrupt. The calls came after
the opposition-controlled congress amended a number of recent laws
introduced by the executive to curb unprecedented rises in the price of
food. *

Correa's call also came in the wake of congress's censure of finance
minister Ricardo Patino over a scandal involving the secret filming of a
discussion between the minister and figures from the banking sector. Patino
is highly popular due to his hardline opposition to international financial
institutions, recently stating that Ecuador should not pay its
"illegitimate" foreign debt.

Reuters reported on July 25 that deputy economy minister Fausto Ortiz had
been made Patino's successor. The news wire reported that "Ortiz, who has
said his role is to make sure the government avoids a default on its foreign
debt, told Reuters Ecuador would not do anything that might jeopardize
foreign financing".

According to the July 22 edition of Venezuelan daily *2001*, Correa made
reference to the concerted campaign by big business to push prices up by
25%-50%, stating the "the groups of power are desperate and they will try to
destabilise us by any means possible". He threatened business owners with
prison terms if they were found to be involved in speculation.

"We will give them until Monday [July 23] for prices to return to their
normal level or we will take measures [via] decrees and we will put in
prison the business owners, the intermediaries, who are speculating."

He asked the population to be "prepared" because "this is only the
beginning. Ahead of us are days which will be much more harder because the
oligarchy, the partyocracy [a reference to the loathed traditional parties
of the elite that dominate congress], certain media outlets, the banking
sector, are desperate."

Dispute over hegemony

According to Virgilo Hernandez — a candidate for Agreement Country, an
alliance formed by Correa's party Alliance Country to contest the
constituent assembly elections — this clash was only the latest in an
ongoing "period of confrontation" between Correa and "the oligarchic powers,
financial powers, and large media corporations".

"We are living through a dispute over hegemony between the oligarchic
forces, those forces that have opposed change, and the process of
transformation being pushed by President Correa and other forces that are
supporting Correa", he explained to *Green Left Weekly* during a visit to
Venezuela in mid-July.

Correa contested the 2006 presidential elections with the stated aimed of
bringing about a "citizen's revolution", uniting Ecuadorians behind a
radical project aimed at moving Ecuador away from neoliberalism. Since day
one of the Correa government, the international and local elites have been
campaigning against the Correa government, which they see as a direct threat
to their interests.

The congress has been one of the battle sites between the elites,
represented in the form of the traditional political parties, and Correa's
project. While Correa won convincingly in the second round of the
presidential elections, his party did not contest the concurrently held
elections for the congress. This left control of this widely discredited
body in the hands of parties tied to the Ecuadorian elites. Instead, a
central point of Correa's election campaign was to call a constituent
assembly to do away with congress and rewrite the constitution to lay the
foundations for a new Ecuador.

This is an idea shared by many in Ecuador. Blanca Chancoso, leader of
ECUARUNARI, the largest indigenous organisation affiliated to the
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), told
*GLW*that congress had lost all credibility, and that "it is the
problem".

"The people are demanding its dissolution; it is not just a policy of the
president. I believe that after the new constitution is approved, a new
congress should be installed", she added. This was reflected in the strong
show of support for Correa in April, when over 80% of Ecuadorians voted in
favor of convening a constituent assembly, giving a massive boost to his
popularity and his political project.

While Hernandez is not a member of Correa's party, his organisation,
Democratic Alternative, has decided to come behind Correa's project, running
candidates on his slate for the constituent assembly. Hernandez believes
that Correa has a "clear conviction to create a homeland for all" and to
construct a more democratic Ecuador. Through the constituent assembly,
Ecuadorians will be able to work out "what we want our 'socialism of the
21st century' to look like".

For Hernandez, such a society requires "a democracy without end" with the
extension and deepening of democracy "in the economic sphere, in the
political sphere — [for example,] how can we democratise the right to
education, health, housing, which until now have been in the constitution
only in a rhetorical form".

Indigenous movement

On the other hand, Chancoso explained that CONAIE would be supporting the
candidates of Pachakutik, the political arm of the Ecuador's powerful
indigenous movement. "In the political, electoral sphere, Pachakutik is
calling on different social sectors to converge, with a strong indigenous
identity — which does not mean a movement or party that is exclusively
indigenous, but rather that clearly identifies itself with the indigenous
people."

Through the constituent assembly, Chancoso argues that Ecuadorians could
begin to "lay the foundations of a new country that brings together the
indigenous and non-indigenous population".

"We [the indigenous people] are more than 40% of the population. We have
being putting forward our proposal of a plurinational state. Our country is
not made up of just one people, but rather is comprised of many millenary
peoples with different cultures, which existed long before the Spanish
invasion."

Chancoso explained that for indigenous people, the demand of a
"plurinational" state was a call for "unity based on diversity". This
diversity allow for the self-determination of the indigenous peoples "as
communities, as nations", but seen from within a "political process of
identity, on the basis of a common political agenda, an agenda of
sovereignty of the country".

"Our slogan is 'Never again a country without us'. Even if we do not gain a
majority of delegates, we believe that we will be fighting inside [the
assembly] to enshrine in the constitution real changes, a real restructuring
to refound the country …"

Even though there are different lists that will represent different sections
of the left in the upcoming elections — Agreement Country, Pachakutik and
the Maoist-influenced Movement for Popular Democracy (MPD) — Hernandez said
that there was an important need "to make the effort to have a common
project. We [Agreement Country] are making an effort to find points of
agreement to transform the country and to deepen democracy, which we
characterise as part of this new socialism of the 21st century."


-- 
"The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?" - Jarvis Cocker
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