Pouring oil on troubled heads
On 25 May Ecuadorians voted in a 14 question referendum. The formal purpose was to ratify the removal from office of President Abdalá Bucaram in February, after massive demonstrations, and a parliamentary vote that the President was mentally unfit to hold office. But the country's elite also used the referendum campaign to re-legitimise the traditional institutions, and reduce the "constitutional" importance of the massive popular mobilisation which brought down the Bucaram regime. President Fabian Alarcón is the winner, but the results show that the crisis has not been resolved. The spirit of the popular mobilisation is still tangible, even if the democratic movement is on the defensive. Jean Dupont* The radical democratic mood in the population following the February victory revealed the existence of two proposals for solving the country's crisis: the traditional, conservative strategy of little reforms which do not threaten the status quo, and a popular strategy of demands, most clearly expressed in those heady days of February.
But while the country's dominant sectors began actively re-building a wide bourgeois coalition, the popular masses, and the democratic currents, seemed to loose all orientation. The conservative strategy came centre-stage.
In early February, more than three million citizens participated in public demonstrations demanding the departure of President Bucaram. Two weeks later, a large majority of parliamentarians voted to approve the establishment candidate, Heinz Moeller, as President of the National Congress.
Only three deputies swam against the tide.' Rosendo Rojas, of Democracia Socialista rejected the claim that Moeller's election represented the culmination of the popular mandate."
This vote made it more difficult to maintain the independent popular mobilisation, and increased the dynamic towards a conservative solution to the crisis.
The parliamentary re-shuffle was more than the selection of a new establishment candidate. For the first time, the main forces of the social and political left entered into a system of co-government with the country's right-wing forces. In doing so, they disarmed themselves.
The May referendum was an important confirmation of the institutional solution to the political crisis opened when mass protest toppled Bucaram. As Hoy newspaper commented the morning after the referendum, "This result consolidates the authority of the current government, and converts the transformation which took place in February into an exceptional series of events, which cannot be taken as a precedent for any type of political manoeuvres [in the future], because those events have been co-validated in the ballot-box — the main source of democratic power."
In fact, most voters voted against their own interests, becoming the victims of left leaders who saw in the events of February nothing more than a great opportunity to win minor, ephemeral positions in the power hierarchy. All "types of political manoeuvres" will indeed take place, but the referendum has reserved this privilege for the dominant classes, giving them the right to interpret the events of February as they see fit.
The day after the referendum, Ecuador Radio reported the demands of "the business community" that Alarcón react firmly to the strikes in the health sector and elsewhere. With the referendum over, "Alarcón should govern. Nothing should stop him now. The country cannot continue to be paralysed." Twenty-four hours later Ecuavisa television news hardened its own tone in reports on the health strike. The following day, most media reported favourably to Alarcón's tough economic measures to reduce the public sector deficit.
Painting over the cracks
Faced with an upsurge in popular self-management, and self-representation, the elite is searching desperately to close all cracks in the system from above. The masses must not be allowed to participate in power in anything other than a subordinate role. Closing ranks, Ecuador's elite has taken a range of measures to reform, and re-assert, traditional authority. • Attacking parliamentary corruption, by targeting 17 deputies, (though not the most important) and beginning corruption investigations against Bucaram and some of his closest collaborators (most of whom have disappeared). • Consolidating control of the key functions of the state. No changes to the
Armed Forces and Police leadership. • Consolidation of a new, pro-government majority in parliament, led by the Social
Christian Party. Elimination of obstacles to the presentation of a united right-wing front. In the next elections presenting a single candidate of the right, as moderate as possible, "in the spirit of February 5th".
• Constitutional reforms, but from the top down only. Heinz Moeller wants no kind of constituent assembly, and nor does the government majority in parliament.
• Co-option of most of the political and social left. Most of the opposition (and many former Bucaram supporters) have effectively pledged subordinate allegiance to this majority.
• Re-starting the privatisation programme, and promising a range of neo-liberal economic "adjustments." Bucaram is not the root of the problem i in thail custom didn't The crisis in the political system didn't
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start with Abdalá Bucaram, even though Alarcón and other of the former President's former associates would like to re-write history that way. The leprosy of Ecuadorian politics began in 1995, when vice-President Alberto Dahik fled to avoid corruption charges. Ever since then, the traditional system of authoritarian government, and an almost non-existent popular opposition was threatened. Bucaram's populist, corrupt politics was one response to this crisis. But during his brief rule, the economy did not
Mexico "End of an era" for sti
Fidel Velazquez Sanchez, head of the died on June 21, at the age of 97. Dan La Botz
Velazquez probably did more than any other single individual to keep Mexican workers in a position of subordination to the Mexican government, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the employers."
"Don Fidel's" death will lead to a succession struggle within the CTM, and could open the way for a more democratic labour movement in Mexico. The Mexican labour movement has recently divided into three different currents: the CTM, the rival Foro group of unions, and their allies in the May First Inter-Union group. Velazquez's death will encourage the process of political redefinition and reorganisation taking place in the labour movement.
The death of Velazquez, so soon before the July 6 national elections, will also hurt the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party and help the principal opposition parties, the National Action Party (PAN) and the Party of the Democratic or Revolution (PRD). The PRD and its candidate for mayor of Mexico City, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, have the most to gain from Velazquez's death.