Ecuador has been poised at a crucial juncture in
its history for several years now. President Rafael Correa, the University of
Illinois-trained economist and leftish firebrand, has been in power for seven
years – longer than anyone in the country’s history. Of 131 seats in Congress,
91 belong to his Country Alliance party – and with 70% of Congress, he has more
of a supermajority than LBJ ever enjoyed. But we’re not here to talk about
electoral politics, are we?
The end of my first visit to Ecuador coincided
with local elections two Sundays ago. I know what you’re thinking: boooor-ing,
in the voice that only Eric Gade can pull off. Most of you don’t give a rat’s
ass for midterms back home, so why bother with those of an underdeveloped
banana republic unknown outside its geographical nomenclature? (Speaking of
republics, Ecuador is the world’s largest exporter of bananas).
Because the country is on the very cutting edge of democratic politics – and
has a thing or two to teach the rest of the continent, if not the world.
In the six years prior to Correa’s election,
Ecuador went through four presidents – one of whom was ousted by a military
coup; one who fled to the Dominican Republic after being accused of mishandling
debt negotiations that lost the country $9 billion; and another who was forced
to step down amidst massive popular and indigenous protests. Compared to his
predecessors, he seems a godsend for the small nation of 15m; if current
approval ratings are to be believed, the voice of the people may actually have
been heard.
Of course, none of this prevented his party from
being trounced in Sunday’s elections. By the end of the day, Correa’s Country
Alliance (AP) had lost the capital, Quito, failed to challenge the conservative
incumbent in the country’s largest city, Guayaquil, and ceded the industrial
center of Cuenca to an opponent on the left. For one of Latin America’s most
successful politicians in decades, Correa has had surprisingly little luck in
converting his nationwide popularity into victory at the urban polls – despite
the fact that he himself hails from the country’s coastal and economic
powerhouse, Guayaquil. Of the ten largest cities in the country, his dominant
AP party does not control a single one. Why don’t urbanites like him?
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My friend was
waiting at arrivals when we touched down at Quito’s sparkling new airport
around 8pm. Since Venezuela has dropped out of the Andean community, our line
at the visa counter was thrice as long (in admirable Andean solidarity, there
is one line at the airport for Ecuadorians, Colombians, Peruvians and Bolivians
and another for the rest of the world. It is hard to imagine the day when
Cleveland International Airport will have one line for NAFTA members and
another for the citizens of Switzerland, Singapore and Somalia) – but entering
the country could not have been easier. Since coming to office, President
Correa has gotten rid of visa requirements for citizens from all but 10 countries.
For those from the other 186 recognized states in the world, all you need to
legally enter this tropical Andean Eden is waltz right in. (For a list of those
who cannot enter, see here).
To my knowledge,
this is the only place on Earth with no restrictions whatsoever on people from
Haiti, Mali, the Congo, Timor-Leste, Sudan, Burma, Iraq and Syria – a list that
could no doubt go on much longer. Such a policy is a perfect example of the
kind of rational and progressive logic that characterizes much of Correa’s strong-handed
reign: unorthodox and open-minded policies driven home by a decisive, pragmatic
and often ideologically flexible administration. It didn’t hurt that the woman
who stamped our passports was paragon of sweetness and gentility: I think I
will love this country.
Located some 25km
northeast of the city, it takes 90 minutes to reach the Mariscal Sucre
International Airport from the center of Quito. Luckily, my buddy lives in
Puembo, a small town only 15 minutes from the shiny new portal. When his family
moved there 25 years ago, theirs was a landscape dotted with rolling green
pastures; pear, palm and papaya trees in the foreground and dotted white peaks of
Cotopaxi in the distance (on
a clear day). Today, it’s but another sprawling exurb hugging the only two-lane
road that leads to the capital’s only airport (to put this in perspective: to
bring the entire capital – and by default the country – to a complete physical
standstill would only require seizing one small part of one small road. This
thought makes me wonder if I’ve been in Colombia too long).
Yet to reach my companion’s
compound is still an adventure: countless lefts and rights through blocks of
make-shift single-story housing as we speed through the shanties in a giant,
silver, tinted Chevy pick-up – dodging a donkey here, a rattling old school-bus
there. Outside each bodega, groups of 6-7 youths linger over barbecue pits or
steaming, rust-stained cauldrons. Some of the properties on the higher side of
the street are draped with beautiful, overflowing flowers and ivy-decked
Byzantine walls: only in passing the front gates can you catch a glimpse of the
haciendas whose foundations are just being dug behind them. On the other side
of the street or around the corner – wherever views of mountain or city do not suffice
– the properties are far more modest. More often than not, they are one-story
cement blocks with the shells of 2nd and 3rd story
additions whose completion their occupants have yet to finance. Homes of mud
and earth are not unheard of.
Finally begins
the homestretch: a left turn onto a straight-shot open road. We’d be going
70mph instead of 50 if it weren’t for the ubiquitous speed-bumps. On the right,
a series of open fields dotted by crumbling homes and errant livestock; on the
left, a single, straight line of 8-10 ft walls, scarcely visible behind a
stream of magenta, mauve and maroon petals poring over from the other side of
the wall. For whatever reason, the barrier seems natural: you don’t wonder
what’s on the other side of the wall. Until he presses the button.
On command, two
large wooden doors open toward the street as if the sea were parting – knightsbridge
being lowered across the moat. What was moments ago a derelict suburban road
rung with donkeys, adolescents and hot-green painted, sulfur-spewing public
buses had opened up onto paradise. Once inside, the gates close behind you as quickly,
subtly and silently as they’d opened. For the outsider, your window of
opportunity into the kingdom was between 3 and 4 seconds: enough to catch a
glimpse but not enough to storm it.
As if by
sorcery, we had disappeared into another realm. To the left and right alike were
multiple Japanese and American SUVs. Before we could step out of the car, two Labradors, one
black and one yellow, had come panting over to greet us. They were not the fearsome
beasts one might have expected: would the wall alone keep the hordes at bay? We
soon found out it wouldn’t need to: the German shepherds spent most of their
time roaming the other, more exposed, side of the compound, just next to the
cows kept for home-made milk and the goats for fresh cheese. One should be
forgiven for feeling just a little invincible from within.
In front of us lay
the kingdom: a cornucopia of crimson, auburn, pink and purple; showers of daffodil,
dodger blue and Brunswick green. There are more colors, shapes and textures in
a single Ecuadorian garden than the western half of the United States. Giant
towering trees of unknown specie create an outer ecological crust over the
property: beneath their top layer of green is a powerful pyramid of competing
genii: palm trees dripping with strange and colorful fruit; dark, rich willows
with birds of song on every other branch. One mustn’t forget the garden’s
history from below: from the savagely fertile earth spring flowers of every
size and temperament – some are sweet, blue and sorrowful – others orange,
brazen and brash.
We are shown to
our quarters, separate from the rest of the compound yet connected by covered
passageways and floral courtyards. At no point can you see more than a quarter
of the property: the vegetation and the disparate lay-out of various chambers
and guest-quarters ringing the main house see to that. In the five nights I
stayed there, I learned only the minute-long jaunt to the kitchen: out the
door, down the corridor, right at the pool, left at the grandparents’ chambers
and left again before the peacock garden – which
contained peacocks. At table, we drank orange juice plucked from the tree
that morning. I tried in vain to try to make conversation with his octogenarian
grandfather: why is small talk with the very young and very old so very
difficult? There were four generations of my host’s family at breakfast that
morning.
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That night we
drove to a friend’s house for drinks. An apostate in a new land, I used the
immunity of having just arrived to ask any number of brash questions about the
country’s geography, economy, demographics and politics; after all, it is the
least understood in South America after Paraguay, Suriname and the Guyanas. The
discussion quickly veered toward Correa, a matter on which those who had been
close friends since childhood were now in deep and fervent disagreement.
The upper classes
are almost uniformly against the incumbent president: for seven years, he has
been crass, brash and extremely dismissive of traditional elites. At a recent
weekly town-hall appearance, he openly railed against the institution of the
ministry of foreign affairs in front of the working-class population that had
come to hear his weekly address, this time in the disadvantaged south of Quito.
Lambasting the expense of many consular offices, he called for the automation
of nearly all consular duties. It should come as little surprise why certain
sectors of society like him more than others.
Correa is also
wildly known for being anti-business, which in some regards rings true: he has squeezed
businesses foreign and local for corporate taxes; appropriated oil companies;
stripped the financial industry of its control of media outlets; and vastly
increased social spending. Government ministries shot up from 21 to 37 in his
first five years – which somebody in addition to foreign oil companies should
ideally pay for. As individuals, Ecuadorians are being (effectively) taxed for
the first time in their country’s history. This can hurt.
But Correa is
also building roads. And vast new networks of modern and efficient health
facilities. And increasing education and social housing. How does he foot the
bill? As my friend told me, for the first time in his life it is considered an
honor and prestige to work for the national government. Of course, this has to
do with wages as well as honor, but the point should not be lost: Correa’s
“Citizens Revolution” involves a strong and varied mélange of his electorate – and
many of the country’s best and brightest are now eager to work for the government
for the first time. As my friend said, “I never found anything in the private
sector that could seduce me to get up at 5:30 and put in 12 hour days.”
_____________________________________________________________
Early in his
first term, Correa notoriously threatened to default on Ecuador’s foreign debt
interest payments. Positing they had been signed by corrupt and incompetent previous
governments that had been acting in bad faith, he called any continuance of
such payments “illegal” and “illegitimate”. Though he did not go through with
this threat, it sent politico-economic shockwaves throughout the region and
world. Pundits were quick to tar him as yet another irresponsible Latin: a
better looking Christina Kirchner with a PhD and a suit. Somehow, he weathered
the storm and fixed for even bigger battles.
Prior to taking
office, the Ecuadorian government received 13% of oil sales from the stuff
extracted within its borders and sold abroad. The rest went to shareholders of
various American, Brazilian, Canadian, European and Chinese firms. Upon taking
office, Correa gave firms a choice: flip the script and pay Ecuadorians 87%
instead of 13% or face forced expropriation. Seven firms went for the door, but
the other nine stayed put and contributed an extra $870 million to Ecuador’s
state budget in 2011 alone. All of them are still operable in Ecuador to this
day.
Which brings us
back to dinner, drinks and internecine conversational battle. My companions had
all gone to the same elite private high school in Quito. One was running a
government ministry; another was in charge of in-country marketing for KFC;
another is helping a Korean firm build Latin America’s first tech city, based
in the middle of the jungle and modeled on Songdo. They were an ideal microcosm of the Ecuadorian elite:
lighter-skinned, European-educated, bi- and trilingual, smart and mostly very
successful. At around age 30, they were not too young to distinguish their own
interests from those of the rest of the country, which often enough were not
aligned.
Those in the opposing
camp were angry about two things: one, Correa’s an arrogant and dictatorial
prick with little regard for the opposition’s feelings; and two, he makes them
pay significantly more in taxes. (A possible unarticulated third: he gives hope
to the country’s underclasses). All things said, the first two are very valid
reasons for despising a man. Hell, I was aggrieved at having to pay 22% sales
tax at restaurants and cafés over the eight days I spent in the country,
regardless of the fact that it contributed to my friend’s salary, who in turn
was hosting me and whose subsidized petrol took me around for free: didn’t they
know I only eat out and ride in cars on vacation?
To conclude.
Having never made any money, I have never paid any taxes. Or real taxes, mind
you: whatever the surtax on lager, skittles and plane tickets I’ve given the
good people in Foggy Bottom a hundred fold. But the real issue is this:
Americans did not pay income taxes until 1913 – a figure that jumped from 7% to
77% over the course of WWI alone. Mass murder and the collapse of civilization aside,
there are few situations in which people voluntarily hand over their wealth in
the interest of the collective. Hence many people’s amazement at the unprecedented
success of Correa’s presidency.
As one of the
guys put it that night: “Correa’s presidency does not serve a single of my
individual interests: he throttles my company and strangles my personal
fortune. I do not support him in the least for what he’s done for me. From a
macro perspective, however, he’s given the country more in seven years than any
president in this country’s history: not only roads, hospitals, schools and
housing, but respect, accountability and honor. He may not be my president, but
he’s the president of the rest of Ecuador’s 15m people. And for this I’ve no
choice but to support him.”
____________________________________________________________
After several
days in Quito, we took a bus to Mindo, a small eco-friendly town carved into a
cloud forest about two hours west of the capital. In recent years it has grown
from a jungle backwater into a regional destination for middle-class
Ecuadorians and foreigners who enjoy ecological sight-seeing, bird-watching and
other strange and thrilling things that white people do to kill time (bungee-jumping,
rafting, paragliding, rappelling, hand-gliding). Old Germans and Americans,
middle-aged French, and Brits in their late 20s: you get the point.
Mindo had two
striking features apart from its natural beauty and rustic charm: one, the
unbelievable inequality between those who’ve managed to tap into the tourism
market and those who haven’t; two, the storm of political activity sweeping the
town in the days before the nationwide municipal elections.
It is no secret
that Ecuador is extraordinarily beautiful and ecologically diverse. When you include
the fact that residents are helpful, kind and friendly, and the local currency
is the US dollar, it makes perfect sense that older Yanks in particular should flock
there. Of Mindo’s 3000 inhabitants, 250 are said to be foreigners, most of who
are German or American, retired and enjoy nature. So far, so good.
But converting
to the dollar may have also caused a housing boom that’s exceeded local demand.
In this town of village-like proportions, there were at least 50 gorgeous,
wood-grained, Swiss-chalet-like hotels and hostels, the vast majority of which
were empty. Next to each is a local dwelling: usually a crumbling log home with
corrugated tin roofs and surrounded by a trench of mud, rubbish and chicken
shit. I do not suppose this differs from what most of the town looked like 20
years ago, but the contrast is telling.
The very
business-oriented owner of our hostel spent his day tapping about his Mac and
pushing overpriced, homemade hot-chocolate, cocktails and honey on us. When
that didn’t work, he tried to sell us tickets to a local frog concert. What did
this entail? Listening to local polliwogs do their nightly mating-call from the
comfort of his buddy’s backyard. The scams went on forever: expensive eco-guides
(i.e. someone’s ambulatory cousin), limited edition bird-watching socks and
cloud forest-inspired frappés. In many parts of Ecuador, the cart is getting
ahead of the horse: half the town pretends to have a foot in 21st
century Northern California, while the other half rattles along in a jungly
early 20th century Andalucía. Where these disparate bedfellows come
together is in politics.
____________________________________________________________
I have not read
Tocqueville in years, but like to think that stumbling into any small
Ecuadorian town at election time is strangely reminiscent of the young
Frenchman getting off a smoky black train in 1820s Chattanooga amidst a roaring
crowd of Andrew Jackson supporters: the mayhem, the fervor, the political
banners, the absolute and utter belief that politics is nothing but a matter of
charisma, energy and willpower – and through these things alone, the atom can
be split, the girl seduced, the fascists defeated, the last two cookies simultaneously
taken from the jar. In the week before elections and throughout the entire
country, there was a not a single block without some colorful smattering of battling
flags and banners. Often the lopsided, mud-caked shacks would be covered in the
most.
But this was
more than your average “burgers and brats” election where power brokers bring
out the butchers and (literally) trade sausages for votes; in Ecuador, municipal posts seem
as hotly contested as presidential ones in the United States. Of course, part
of this has to do with the fact that voting is mandatory. If I have to
go to school, then I may as well starch my Jncos before doing so. On the other
hand, locking little ones in a classroom doesn’t make them any keener to learn.
So why do Ecuadorians take elections so seriously?
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Several
interesting rules apply to election time in Ecuador. One: no booze in the three
days leading up to the election. From corner store bodega to three-star
Michelin restaurant, not a drop of devil’s juice can be bought or sold in the
entire country from Thursday at midnight until the polls have closed after
Sunday’s vote. An electoral precaution also practiced in Colombia, it says three
things about these governments relationship with their electorate: they don’t
trust them; they don’t trust them to hold their drink (at all); and they certainly
don’t think they have the foresight to stock up ahead of time.
These minor
insults aside, the ban also says something about the special place held by the elections:
they are holier than holy – collective moments for reflection, health and
stable mind; extended moments of poise and concentration, sobriety being the
greatest enemy of folly. Elections aside, social scientists should be
salivating at the data to be had on an entire country that is stone-cold sober
for three full days: homicide and domestic abuse cases are only the most
obvious cases in point. But what about the breakups that would never occur, the
wages never lost at the tracks, the flippant remark never made to one’s boss?
Yet for the
people of Mindo, the week before the election is a time for celebration. And
since all campaigning must cease as of the Friday before Sunday’s election,
Thursday night’s a party. All day long and in the rain, pick-ups drive up and
down Main Street with 8-10 youths in tow, each wearing matching neon-yellow
t-shirts and waving flags. Switch the flags for arms of any sort and you’d
think they were the Lord’s Resistance Army if it weren’t for their pudgy
outlines, mild countenance and seemingly good-natured enthusiasm for democratic
process. Almost more telling, however, were the candidates they were so eager
to back: “Little Joey for Comptroller,” “Sally the Septuagenarian for City
Councilor,” “Tommy the Tank for Local Treasurer.”
I only mock
their names because half of them were misspelled variants of the American
original (Wilyam, Jhon, Brand-in and Jaysin are but a few examples: they say
that on the Pacific coast there are a great many chaps called “Usnavy Gonzales”
or “Usmariño Sanchez” as in to commemorate the presence of the US Navy and Marines.
In school they used to call this “Empire by invitation”). But a great many candidates
were also young and comically “unpresidential”. Many of the images looked like awkward
poster-children for internet model recruiting websites: “high school female
athletes needed for family-oriented detergent commercial” or “big hair and
toothy smile needed for national peanut campaign.” Every photogenic mommy with
a GED seemed to be running in Mindo.
But the atmosphere
of the event suggested that democracy in Ecuador is far more than a popularity
contest or beauty pageant. During the last night of campaigning, local power
brokers rolled out the stage for the band to play in the rain. Families
sauntered up and down the street, snacking and sipping orange drink, while
party aficionados chanted anthems in the drizzle. From midday ‘til nightfall, the
streets were packed with life and youth and good-natured enthusiasm – and it
wasn’t just one political party. The yellows, the greens and the reds – which
correspond to no color-associated ideological affiliations – were all present.
It was like a well-mannered, highly attended high school prep rally for Andean
families in the rain forest. I’ve never seen a more peaceful, orderly or
enthusiastic political outpouring. Song, speech, song, over and over again, was
the order in which they crooned our little rainy cloud village to sleep that
night; the party was still alive and kicking when I went to bed at midnight on
the other side of the river.
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I don’t know which
parties were running on what promises in Mindo, but it almost doesn’t matter. In
a town that relies heavily on a tourism industry only likely to grow, it might
seem odd that people take such an interest in local politics. But it reveals a
deeper trend in Ecuadorian society: whatever the president’s popular feats at the
top – reversing the country’s oil fortunes, investing in roads and hospitals or
sticking it to the Colombians and the Americans over the airwaves – he also benefits
from the fact that Ecuadorians are almost hyper-politically-engaged. A tireless
workaholic and ruthless pragmatician, Correa’s pace seems to go down well with everyone
in the country, regardless of political affiliation. As the woman who drove us to
the bus stop said: “he may be an arrogant, nepotistic, tax-mongering despot,
but he’s delivered on far more than any politician in this country has in
decades.”
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As my friend,
the government official, was apt to remind me, Correa is nothing if not a
master political operative. One day he is dining with Ahmadinejad and praising
Ecuador’s links with “democratic Iran” and the next he’s lauding the small
Andean country’s historic ties with the Jewish state. Granting Julian Assange asylum
at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London might not have won him many friends in high
circles, but at times he’s less concerned with traditional diplomatic protocols,
as his above comments about his very own ministry of foreign affairs have
shown.
Yet his
experiments go well beyond the realm of mere politics or prickly matters of
state. Since coming to office in 2007, he has also dabbled in less-publicized
ways of bolstering his small Andean nation of 15m: cultural autarky. In June
2013, Correa passed a communications bill requiring (at least) 50% of all music
played on Ecuadorian radio to be home-grown. Since Ecuadorian artists accounted
for less than 10% of airplay before the law, they have seen a sharp increase in
their national exposure. The idea, of course, is modeled after countries like Argentina
who imposed similar laws in the 1980s and 1990s – and now enjoys one of the most
dynamic national music industries in the world. As Ecuador’s Vice Minister of Culture
Jorge Luis Serrano put it, “This is a
country full of talent, the problem has been the lack of industry, the lack of
support from the government. We have it now.”
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In the end,
Correa’s party still came up short in the 23 February elections – particularly
in Quito. The president himself had warned that the loss of the capital would
be “very dangerous” for the continuing success of his “Citizen’s Revolution.” On
what slogan did the inexperienced, 39-year old opponent run his opposition
campaign? “Less taxes, less fines.” For all Correa’s genius and drive, perhaps you
needn’t always have a PhD in Economics to hear the voice of the people.
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