Within less than a year Rafael Correa has won four election battles (the two rounds of the presidential elections at the end of 2006, a referendum on the election of a constituant assembly in April 2007, and elections of the constituent assembly members on 30 September 2007).
While all right-wing parties have been campaigning to block Rafael Correa’s party, calling it a communist threat, ‘Alianza Pais’ (http://www.acuerdopais.com/ ) won over 65% of the seats (whereas the polls had predicted 45%). With political allies such as MPD and Pachakutik, the party should be able to count on a comfortable majority.
For CADTM this is excellent news: the Ecuadorian people will finally be in a position to control their future and make choices that will allow them to benefit from their country’s resources.
A majority of the population voted without heeding the major Ecuadorian media, all of which are hostile to Rafael Correa. The country no longer has a public television or radio channel. A new public service channel is to be created next November: this is one of the measures announced by the government.
Rafael Correa has promised to carry out a radical political reform of the country and to implement measures aimed at redistributing the country’s wealth. In July 2007 he set up a Commission for a Comprehensive Audit of Internal and External Public Debt (CAIC in Spanish) in which Eric Toussaint represents CADTM. President Rafael Correa wants to drastically reduce the portion of the budget allotted to repaying the country’s public debt, and he can rely on CADTM’s support. At the same time, he wants to increase social expenditure.
But the path to social reform is full of pitfalls. Several left-wing presidents have won elections in Latin America in past years by promising to break with the neoliberal policies of their predecessors, but few of them have actually kept their word. CADTM hopes that Rafael Correa will stay the course and that he will succeed in implementing a democratic social justice policy. With this prospect in view, the issue of Ecuadorian debt is more vital than ever.
Contacts:
Damien Millet, president of CADTM France, france cadtm.org
Eric Toussaint, president of CADTM Belgium, international cadtm.org