- Raphael Correa was elected Ecuador's president last November
and took office January 15 promising social change. He's the country's
eighth president in the last decade including three previous ones driven
from office by mass street protest opposition against their misrule and
public neglect. Correa must now deliver and just got a boost from his governing
Movimiento Alianza Pais' landslide Constituent Assembly election victory
to rewrite the nation's constitution for the 177th time in Ecuador's history
hoping to get it right this time. Awaiting a final tabulation of results,
it appears Correa supporters got around 70% of the vote winning 80 of the
130 Assembly seats. That's a comfortable majority to push through change,
but doing it won't be easy, and Correa's commitment has yet to be tested.
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- Longtime Latin American expert James Petras writes "Ecuador
today faces great opportunities for a basic social transformation and also
grave threats from imperial networks" the way states in the region
always do. He notes how in recent years mobilized urban and rural popular
classes ousted neoliberal regimes only to see them resurface under so-called
left-center leaders (who are neither left nor center) like Lula in Brazil,
Kirchner in Argentina, Morales in Bolivia, Vasquez in Uruguay and others.
Even Hugo Chavez governs from the "pragmatic left." He combines
grassroots participatory democracy and redistributive social policies with
support for business interests but on a more equitable basis than under
previous Venezuelan leaders.
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- Petras quotes a Forbes magazine editor's comment on former
Mexican president Luis Echeverria (1970 - 1976) that's very revealing and
explains Correa's challenge - "He talks to the Left and works for
the Right." That's pretty common in Latin America today, and Brazil
stands out as Exhibit A under former Workers' Party co-founder and the
country's current president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2002 to present).
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- Lula promised social change, but delivered betrayal.
Even before being elected, he signed a letter of understanding with the
IMF promising no change and business as usual. He agreed to full debt service
and repayment terms as well as to back economic stability and neoliberal
policies. He didn't disappoint.
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- Once elected with a clear majority, he cut public employee
pensions 30%; his agrarian policy subsidized agribusiness; his promise
of land redistribution to the Landless Workers Movement (MST) was broken;
spending for health and education was cut; employer rights to fire workers
and cut severance pay were supported; extended privatizations of state-owned
companies were backed; thuggish troops occupied Haiti; and right-wing bankers,
corporate executives and free-marketeers were appointed economic ministers
and central bankers. Petras sums up his record saying: "Lula fits
the profile of a right-wing neoliberal politician," not a "center-leftist"
one.
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- Current Argentina president Nestor Carlos Kirchner is
Exhibit B (in office from 2003 to the present with an October 28 presidential
election ahead and the president's wife ahead in the polls to win it).
Petras notes how compared to Lula, he seems progressive. He cut unemployment
from 20 to 15%, raised pensions and wages, renegotiated part of the country's
foreign debt and rescinded immunity for military torturers although with
little to show for it.
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- In sharp contrast, "fraudulent privatizations"
in Argentina's key industrial areas weren't reversed; inequalities remained
the same or increased in some sectors; poverty levels are still almost
30%; 10% inflation diluted nominal earnings gains; the socio-economic power
structure stayed the same; Argentina's thuggish troops occupy Haiti; its
central bankers and economic ministers are hard right; debt service was
placed above health and education spending; and unfettered capitalism was
supported following the 2001 economic collapse and subsequent uprisings.
Petras calls Kirchner a "pragmatic conservative willing to dissent
from the US when it" serves Argentina's business interests. As for
being a social democrat? Forget it.
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- Bolivia's president and first ever indigenous head of
state (2006 to present), Juan Evo Morales Ayma, is Exhibit C, and along
with Lula, the greatest disappointment. Petras cites his government as
"the most striking example of (a) 'center-left' regime" to betray
its supporters and embrace neoliberalim once in office. Mass uprisings
ousted two earlier presidents who defended foreign investor natural resources
ownership, and Bolivians elected Morales to do what they didn't. Instead,
he rejected oil and gas expropriation, supports Big Oil interests, and
embraced business as usual policies. Under nationalizations Morales-style,
current contractual arrangements are effectively intact, and the country's
mineral resources have been sold off to the greatest ever number of foreign
investors.
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- In addition, Morales broke his promise to triple the
painfully low minimum wage, increased it 10% instead, and maintained previous
neoliberal fiscal austerity and economic stability policies. He also tolerates
the US Drug Enforcement Agency's intrusive presence and the Pentagon's
Chapare military base; appointed hard right economic, defense and other
ministers; opposed agrarian reform; supports large landowners; provides
them large subsidies and tax incentives; and backs the Confederation of
Private Businessmen in Bolivia by promoting foreign investment, social
spending cuts, prioritization of exports, and other pro-business policies
above the interests of the people who elected him. Petras says Morales
"excels in public theater" by combining "political demagogy"
to his base while backing neoliberal IMF austerity and business-friendly
policies.
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- Here's a sample of the former from Morales' September
24 UN General Assembly speech when he said: "....each day we are destroying
the future of humanity. (We must) pinpoint who our enemies are (and the)
damage (they do) that may put an end to humanity....I think that capitalism
is the worst enemy of humanity and if we do not change the model, change
the system (our efforts here) will be totally in vain....Capitalism has
twins, the market and war....This is why (we must) change economic models....particularly
in the western world." It's lovely rhetoric from a man who, in fact,
embraces the model he denounces.
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- He symbolizes the fantasy of "new winds from the
Left" sweeping the region, but too many others do as well in Brazil,
Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and all of Central America
including Costa Rica. There, a US intimidation campaign narrowly got DR-CAFTA
passed in an October 7 national referendum that still awaits a recount
before confirming what pre-referendum polls predicted would go the other
way.
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- That aside, there's strong support for the left throughout
Latin America that eventually may bubble up into change. It's too early
to know for sure where Correa stands, but his commitment will soon be fully
tested. Here's what he's up against.
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- US regional dominance is still strong, and thinking otherwise
is misguided. It's not like in the 1990s "Golden Age of Pillage,"
but it's still able to keep business flourishing, including in Venezuela
where it's booming. Nonetheless, a new generation of committed leftist
leaders are emerging with Correa yet to prove he's one of them and may
in the end disappoint.
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- His chance to prove otherwise is coming, and he won it
convincingly with a 54% second round presidential electoral victory. It
was followed by an overwhelming 82% referendum majority to convoke a Constituent
Assembly to draft a new socially progressive constitution. Correa says
it will be based on "principles not models (and) every country must
decide according to its own different realities." The Assembly will
convene the end of October to begin its work with a long struggle ahead
to complete it. It hopes to finish in six months, but its mandate allows
more time if it's needed.
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- Correa wants the constitution to "facilitate"
foreign investment (especially in banking) "to force competition."
He's against monopolies, traditional oligarchic power, and the one-sided
big media opposition to his government. He's also renegotiating the country's
debt, is assessing its legitimacy, wants a constitutional limit on its
repayment, and intends to keep the dollar the official currency with eventual
plans to abandon it. In addition, he favors ending the central bank's autonomy,
joined the Bank of the South (to be officially founded November 3 and headquartered
in Caracas), expelled the World Bank's representative in April, is ending
relations with the IMF, and aims to transform the current neoliberal system
into one that will aid "the recovery of the government's planning
capacity (and be a) beginning of the concept of a solidarity system."
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- Correa's close economic adviser and leading September
30 vote getter, Alberto Acosta, said the nation's "economy should
be based on human beings" and that capital, investment, the profit
motive motive and workings of the state should be subordinate to human
needs. If Correa supports that view and will back it fully, he's off to
a good start. It's too soon to tell but early signs are promising.
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- He talks the talk and is starting to prove it. He promised
social democratic change and a "citizens' revolution" and said
he'll use the country's oil revenues for the people with a positive step
already taken. On October 4, he signed a decree increasing Ecuador's share
of windfall foreign oil company profits from 50 to 99% while committing
to honor existing contracts. Announcing the move, Correa said: "No
more plundering, no more surrender, no more waste. (Ecuador's oil) now
belongs to all Ecuadoreans" with revenues from it earmarked for social
welfare and infrastructure.
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- Correa also indicated after a new constitution is drafted
and approved by referendum, he'll call for new elections for president,
vice-president and Congress. The current legislature has no Correa party
representatives in it, but he hopes overwhelming popular support will change
that. The sitting Congress, according to Correa "must be tossed back
into the street," but that's for the people to decide. Democracy,
however, isn't just about elections. It's about what happens afterwards,
and that's for Correa, the Constituent Assembly and a newly elected Congress
to decide.
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- The September 30 victory was Correa's third triumph in
nine months, and he hailed it saying the "Ecuadorean people have won
the mother of all battles. (It was) an unquestionable victory." Earlier
he echoed Hugo Chavez's call for a "new socialism of the twenty-first
century (and that Ecuador must end) the perverse (neoliberal) system that
has destroyed our democracy, our economy, our society." He won't have
long to back that rhetoric with action, but doing it won't be easy.
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- The long shadow of Washington haunts the region, and
its influence pressures and subverts change from the left. At the same
time, countries like Ecuador face conflicting interests - maintaining the
status quo from the right and demands for real change from below through
redistributive social policies and nationalizing strategic sectors like
oil, gas, banks and land.
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- Petras is hopeful "decay and profound disintegration
of all the traditional parties opens the way for (progressive) new political
forces." He sees an "historical opening" and opportunity
for change through an "alliance of trade unionists, Indian militants,
movement leaders and ecologists" in the newly formed Polo Democratico
(PD). Its agenda calls for a "total rupture (and) transformation of
the Constituent Assembly into the legislative arm of the peoples' movement."
Its aim is bold and revolutionary - to establish "popular sovereignty"
that places basic resources like oil and gas under "popular self-management"
and out of the hands of local oligarchs and exploitive foreign capital.
It's a national liberation struggle to defeat imperialism and savage capitalism
and return power to the people. Now it's for Correa and his coalition to
prove they're up to the challenge. So far at least, it looks like they'll
try.
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- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
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- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com
now moved to Mondays at noon US central time.
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