ECUADOR
The coming of a new era?
BY MARC BECKER
Since Left-populist Hugo Chavez’s presidential election in Venezuela in 1998, the entire continent of South America has taken a Leftward tilt. The victory of Leftist candidates in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and most significantly Evo Morales in Bolivia, seemed to confirm that direction. Subsequent electoral defeats of Leftist candidates in Peru and Colombia in 2006 led pundits to pontificate that the tide had changed. Ecuador’s October 15 presidential elections are allegedly one more plebiscite on the Latin American Left.
Underlying this international context, activists debate what are potentially more important issues for the Left, both in Ecuador as well as globally. Is a struggle for social justice better carried out as a social movement on the streets or in the electoral realm? Should the Left build a broad popular movement or organize on a class basis? These issues do not seem to have simple answers, and the inherent conflicts in building a movement for social change appear to be endless and potentially unresolvable.
In 1990, a powerful Indigenous levantamiento or uprising swept across Ecuador. Organized as a grassroots social movement rather than a political party, the Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE, Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) rose to the forefront of these protests. Indigenous demands for respect and equality had revolutionary implications that threatened the country’s white, elite power base. CONAIE came to be seen as a model for how civil society could organize to fight for its rights.
For years, indigenous organizations debated whether to engage in electoral politics, whether to forward their own candidates and whether to support other Leftist parties. CONAIE initially decided not to participate in elections, arguing that neither the political system nor political parties were functioning in a way that represented indigenous peoples’ interests. The formation in 1995 of the Movimiento Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik (MUPP, Pachakutik Movement for Plurinational Unity) represented an alternative to forming an ethnic party or merging with existing Leftist groups. Indigenous peoples and other sectors of Ecuador’s popular movements would organize together as equals in a joint project to achieve common goals of social justice.
Pachakutik is an Indigenous Kichwa word which signifies change, rebirth, transformation and the coming of a new era. Incorporated as a political movement rather than political party, Pachakutik was organized in a horizontal, democratic and inclusive fashion. It explicitly identified itself as part of the new Latin American Left that embraced principles of community, solidarity, unity, tolerance and respect. Pachakutik opposed the government’s neoliberal economic policies and favoured a more inclusive and participatory political system. It represented a culmination of CONAIE’s drive to insert indigenous peoples directly into debates, giving them a voice and allowing them to speak for themselves.
2006 ELECTIONS
A key debate emerged within Pachakutik over not only who to support as a presidential candidate, but even whether they should participate in the October 15, 2006 elections. In two previous presidential campaigns, Pachakutik had allied with an outsider and the result was not positive. Most notably, in 2003 Pachakutik had joined Lucio Gutiérrez’s government only to leave six months later with complaints that it had elected a government to power in which it had no real power.
For 2006, some activists supported running an Indigenous candidate. Most commonly mentioned were long-time CONAIE leader Luis Macas or Auki Tituaña, an honest and capable mayor of the small town of Cotacachi. Others wanted to support someone from outside the movement, most commonly the mestizo Rafael Correa who had gained broad support as Economic Minister for his anti-neoliberal stances. Correa had national exposure and broad popularity, but some questioned whether he was ideologically committed to Pachakutik’s Centre-Left agenda. Previous problems arguably resulted not from engaging electoral politics, but rather from running candidates not tightly integrated into social movements. This debate also went to the heart of the conceptualization of Pachakutik. Should it convert into an indigenous party or retain its original structure as a multi-ethnic political movement? As the best organized sector of civil society, the Left could not succeed without the participation of indigenous peoples. Likewise, if indigenous peoples did not join a broader leftist movement they threatened to do little more than isolate themselves from wider political movements.
Eventually, Pachakutik decided to select a candidate from within its ranks, deciding that it had paid too high of a price for forming alliances outside of its own movement. At first Macas had discarded suggestions that he should run for the presidency, determined to stay at the head of CONAIE as a social movement protesting neoliberal economic policies. When supporters pressed him to run, he proposed a primary in order for the Left to unify around a single candidate. Other parties rejected this proposal, preferring instead to run their own campaigns, and almost certainly assuring that none of the Leftist candidates would win. Commentators criticized the Left for its apparent fear of democracy, arguing that a primary was the only mechanism to arrive at a unified and legitimate candidate. Vanity and sectarian interests triumphed over a struggle for social justice. Splitting the popular vote opened the way for right-wing candidates.
Macas finally accepted Pachakutik’s nomination, and formally launched his campaign with an ethnic flourish at the Inti Raymi (June solstice sun festival) celebrations at the Puntiachil archaeological site in Cayambe. First in Kichwa and then in Spanish, Macas invoked the memories of Inka leaders Tupac Amaru and Atahualpa. “Today true politics are reborn,” Macas proclaimed. “Politics of our communities, politics of honesty.” Macas announced a plan of government based on the nationalization of natural resources, recuperation of dignity, ending corruption and calling for a constituent assembly to address fundamental problems that kept leading to failures in Ecuador’s state structures.
“Alliances are still the way to go, in the future,” says anthropologist Fernando García. “However, not alliances with the main political parties, but with civil society organisations that want to rebuild the strength of the left, and which support the movement’s political platform.” Coordinator Gilberto Talahua emphasizes that as a collective movement, Pachakutik was fundamentally different than Centre- Left parties with individual membership. Organizationally, Pachakutik utilized a collective decision-making process in contrast to the vertical nature of traditional leftist political parties.
A significant sub-current in Pachakutik publicly disagreed with a Macas candidacy, preferring instead to support Correa, who they believed had a better chance of winning. Macas’ supporters compared Correa to Gutiérrez, complaining that his actions were deeply fracturing the Indigenous movement. Some who initially supported Correa’s candidacy left, complaining that Pachakutik was losing its multi-cultural origins and becoming an exclusionary ethnic party. Without broader alliances, Pachakutik lagged behind the traditional parties representing oligarchical interests. Pachakutik became as fragmented and divided as the rest of Ecuador.
A record 17 presidential candidates registered for the October 15 elections, almost guaranteeing that no candidate would gain 50 percent of the vote thereby requiring a November 22 run-off election. June polls placed centrist León Roldós in the lead with 23 percent, followed by conservative Cynthia Viteri from the Social Christian Party with 16 percent A large number of voters remained undecided, and some observers predicted that a plurality of votes would be blank or spoiled. Not only indigenous movements but right-wing, populist and progressive political parties were also deeply fractured. Ecuador is posed to continue to suffer from a series of weak governments and more political instability, arguably brought on by neoliberal policies.
Macas ranked in last place in the polls, with about one percent of the vote. Racial discrimination remained a problem, with the media often ignoring his candidacy. Nevertheless, in rural areas Macas met with a strong base of support. Pachakutik’s campaign underscored that indigenous efforts, whether on the streets or in the voting booth, were unlikely to succeed without support from other sectors of Ecuador’s diverse social movements.
HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD
John Holloway’s 2002 book Change the World Without Taking Power proposes that the world cannot be changed through taking control over state structures. Instead, the revolutionary challenge facing the twenty-first century is to change the world without taking power. Debates between focussing on building a social movement or engaging electoral politics have long run through the left, and to a certain point reflects polemics between anarchists and communists over the usefulness of state structures in making revolutionary social changes. In engaging these issues, indigenous movements in Ecuador are little different than Leftist activists elsewhere.
Indigenous movements in Ecuador are strong enough to bring down governments but not united enough to rule on their own, or even possibly in alliance with others. Shifting from a grassroots social movement to a national-level electoral apparatus proved to be difficult and wrought with complications. Although organized as a civil society, indigenous activists had realized the potential of a social movement, the promises of political party politics remained elusively beyond their grasp. Eschewing electoral politics for an exclusive focus on social movement organizing did not seem a viable alternative to realize the depth of social changes necessary.
It is easy to criticize one path, but perhaps irresponsible to do so without laying out concrete and viable alternatives. The case of indigenous movements
(as well as the broader Left) in Ecuador would seem to underscore the argument that it is not possible to change the world without taking power, but neither is taking power all that it takes to change the world. Changing the world is a puzzling but pressing issue that indigenous activists, along with the rest of us, continue to try to solve.
ADDENDUM
IN THE OCTOBER 15 ELECTIONS, ALVARO Noboa, a pro-US billionaire populist and the country’s richest man, came in first place with about 26 percent of the vote. Left populist Rafael Correa came in second with about 22 percent. A runoff between the two candidates will be held on November 26. Luis Macas of Pachakutik came in a dismal sixth place, with barely 2 percent of the vote.
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[Marc Becker is a Latin American Historian at Truman State University who studies Indian and peasant movements in twentieth-century Ecuador. His teaching interests primarily focus on interdisciplinary and historical studies of Latin America, including agrarian societies, ethnicity, popular movements and revolutions.]
