Reform or Revolution?: Comparitive Analysis of the Populist Presidencies of Evo Morales and Rafael Correa
Introduction
The recent ascent of populist leaders in the Andean region has become a subject of fascination for many. Their combative and outspoken style, denial of the Washington Consensus, and efforts to restructure the state in the name of the disadvantaged has inspired equally impassioned praise and ire. Analysis focuses heavily on the relationship between these personas, constructing a rough lineage that names Fidel Castro as the Father, Hugo Chavez the Son, and Evo Morales of Bolivia and Rafael Correa of Ecuador as his disciples. No matter how close the relationship between these leaders, however, we know that none of them sprang from another, but domestic conditions which no amount of campaign donations could have fostered. Far more than any shared ideology, the demands of the plebiscite that brought them into office has dictated the policies these men pursue to retain power. Analyzing the elections and subsequent administrations of Correa and Morales by the political climate from which arose, the authority they opposed and the bases of their support, it becomes clear that their mandates arose from these unique domestic factors, with Chavismo being but the brand under which they were sold.
Born of Crisis
To understand these administrations is to understand the climates of intense voter dissatisfaction from which they arose. In Bolivia and Ecuador it was enduring frustration with the political system as it stood that made the unconventional approaches of these populists so appealing. Although much of this frustration centered on the believed failure of similar economic approaches, the nature and level of the core crisis for the governments was not the same.
By 2005 the politics of Ecuador had been exceptionally volatile for nearly a decade. Anger over economic underperformance and government corruption had repeatedly brought protests to the streets and presidents out of office, but this time, “the driving force behind these manifestations of popular discontent was opposition to what was seen as a one-way road to dictatorship” (Pachano 2007). In response, congress removed President Gutierrez, replacing him with Vice President Alfredo Palacio whose attempts at reform failed without the institutional support necessary to achieve any significant proposals. In this environment Ecuadorians yearned for a form of representation alternative to the one that failed them year after year.
Dissatisfaction in Bolivia arose in vastly different fashion, where the populace was hostile to the policies of the ruling elite more than the concept of political representation as a whole. Opposition to Neoliberalismo and demand for the nationalization of Bolivia’s energy resources sparked the protests that removed Bolivia’s sitting president in 2005 (Lehoucq, 2008), but these cries were hardly new, representing the agenda of Morales’ MAS party that had steadily been gaining ground for years. Thus in Bolivia it was not a complete rejection of current political leaders that invited the presidency of Morales, but a culmination of the efforts his party staged for representation of popular interests.
The roots of democratic instability that facilitated the rise of Morales and Correa have characterized fundamentally how each man has navigated the landscape. While the revolutionary rhetoric of Morales has gained much attention, his challenge to democracy permanently in his country is much weaker in actuality than the one Correa poses. In their recent article on party system collapse in Latin America, Henry A. Dietz and David J. Meyers (2007) present a three-election based model of collapse that conforms quite readily to the recent case of Ecuador, where parties under the last system-sustaining president resort to “recriminations over who is responsible for declining support [increases] tensions” and fail “to cooperate in any meaningful sense.” In contrast, parties in Bolivia never lost the promise they hold as representative agents to the extant they did in Ecuador, even as the dominant MAS has attempted to marginalize their role.
A Rejection of Whom?
Both Correa and Morales posed themselves to be a rejection of politics as usual, an alternative to the status quo that had failed the people. “Historical and left-wing populism,” Susanne Gratius (2008) notes her recent assessment of the phenomenon, “are based on an antagonistic relationship between the people and the oligarchy.” While both the Ecuadorian and Bolivian have made much use of this label, the identity of the malfeasants has been sharply different. From the beginning of his 2006 campaign for president, Rafael Correa focused much of his vilification on the partidocracia, the party-based democratic system (Conaghan 2008). This system failed the wants of voters repeatedly in years past, without a single president fulfilling their full term since 1996. Confidence in democratic institutions in 2006 fell to a remarkable low. Ecuadorians rated their trust in the national government and their political parties at 21.7 and 15.1 out of 100 points, respectively, both 30% drops from levels in 2004, and among the lowest in Latin America at the time (Seligson et al. 2006). Under these conditions, Correa mounted a campaign against the political class as a whole, the reformers as ineffective and corrupt as the parties they hoped to redeem. As Finance Minister, he had distinguished himself for his opposition to the neo-liberalism the electorate had become suspicious of and left the office without the taint of previous parties. His campaign also featured no legislative candidates, likely due to an inability to produce any (Pachano 2007), further identifying him with a repudiation of traditional politics. This platform, championing a constituent’s assembly over congressmen and rejecting the neo-liberalist policies that seemed to only hurt Ecuadorians, delivered Correa a win.
For Morales, the continuing marginalization of the interests of the indigenous majority in Bolivia formed the basis for his campaign, and to his constituency the oligarchy was not the political system as a whole, which Morales’ MAS party sprang from, but Bolivia’s white elite (Gratius 2008). Himself of indigenous descent, Morales represented a majority that had never held the presidency and which tired of what it saw as the unfair use of the country’s oil riches, particularly the liberalization of these resources. This difference, between opposition to ruling interests and opposition to the system itself, can be seen in data regarding the confidence Ecuadorians and Bolivians had in their Congress. In Bolivia in 2004, the year before Morales was elected, trust in the Congress stood at an average of 37.5 out of 100 points, while in Ecuador, the National Congress earned only an average of 16.7 points in 2006 (Seligson et al. 2006). While both markers show a sizable distrust in democratic institutions, Bolivia’s higher level of confidence shows that the populace did not completely lose faith in representation.
While their stance as fighters against neo-liberalization and the elites of old is shared, it becomes clear that key differences in opposition have shaped the tenures of Morales and Correa. In Ecuador, Correa’s election became a referendum on the political system, collapsed by popular vote, without any clear alternatives now other than Correa himself. In Bolivia, Morales was swept into office on the promise of better representation of his constituents, his party a radical but continuing presence, with remnants of his disorganized opposition enduring.
Sources of Support
While their elections based on mandates for the greater influence of the plebiscite and nationalist economic reform result in superficial similarity, demands on the presidents have been quite different, owing to the origins of their campaigns. Each has introduced a new constitution that would assure the possibility of their reelection, to be voted up or down by popular referendum, but the provisions of and opposition to these constitutions is remarkably dissimilar
Rafael Correa, charged with disassembling the political system in Ecuador, achieved just that, eliminating checks that blocked his referendum on a new constitution that strengthens the executive and creates a constituent assembly with significant power over other offices of the government. This referendum passed easily, with 64% of the vote, and reflects the approval voters hold for the man they charged with delivering more direct influence of the people.
Evo Morales, however, must continue to garner the support of indigenous peoples, whose economic interests fundamentally conflict with those of the mainly white and mestizo occupiers of Bolivia’s natural gas rich lands (Bright 2008). Bound to the concerns of this voting bloc, Morales’ proposed reform constitution has had to include greater redistribution of land and gas wealth. This constitution has met with considerably more opposition, owing to Morales’ inability to dislodge the regional leaders still strongly supported by the slight minority of non-indigenous in the East. While the referendum on the new constitution is set to take place in 2009, it has met with significant delay and disruption by the opposition.
The importance of the sources of support for Morales and Correa cannot be underemphasized. The indigenous movement that legitimized the presidency of Morales and continues to be the voter he relies on has never had the same pull on that of Correa. Demographics and the politics of ethnic identity deemphasize the role of this movement in Ecuador. While both Bolivia and Ecuador have significant indigenous populations, ethnic self-identification is drastically different. In Ecuador in 2006, when given an option of identifying themselves as mestizo, white, indigenous, black, or mulatto, 78.7 percent identified mestizo, 12.1 white, and 2.6% indigenous, with trends showing and increase of mestizo identification from white by 5% from 2001 to 2006 (Seligson et al. 2006). Given similar options on 2006 Bolivian survey however, 64.8% identified themselves as mestizo, 11% as white, and 19.36% as indigenous, furthermore identification as indigenous had only overtaken identification as white after 2004, with under 10% answering indigenous and over 25% answering white in 2000 (Seligson et al. 2006). In explaining this shift, the Audit remarks that “it is precisely the national political context, in very specific moments, that appears to play a determining role regarding Bolivian identity.”
Reflecting this, the political role of the indigenous is not nearly the same in Ecuador. While Gratius claims that Correa relies on the indigenous movement as “a major support base,” economist Kenneth P. Jameson (2008) notes that “while many of Correa’s economic policies are quite consistent with the past platforms of the indigenous movement, the indigenous have not been included in any central way in his government.” This is representative of Correa’s political mechanism in general, which has been exclusionary without the threat of rivals or an identifiably cohesive base to which he would be bound.
Conclusion
The standard analysis of the Bolivian and Ecuadorian presidents treats their beliefs as one for their similarity in economic ideology, use of populist appeals and proximity to Hugo Chavez, but this interpretation ignores the mandates of the plebiscite that elected these leaders. If we are to believe that their goals are the same, it is Rafael Correa who appears the moderate, pushing for much less of the redistribution of wealth that lies at the center of Chavismo. With the aid of the above analysis, however, it becomes clear that Morales’ need to deliver these kinds of programs stems from the reform demanded by his election and for his party and Correa who is the revolutionary, with no ties to the system before him and no need to deliver anything another than its complete abolishment. These differences are key to understanding the motives of populist leaders as a whole, whose security is only as sure as their ability to deliver on promises and whose powers are only as great as the weakness of competing alternatives.
References
Gratius, Susanne. “The ‘Third Wave of Populism’ in Latin America” Working paper, Fundacion par alas Relaiones Internacionales y el Dialogo Exterior, 2007
Dietz, Henry A. and David J. Meyers. “From Thaw to Deluge: Party System Collapse in Venezuela and Peru.” Latin American Politics & Society 49.2 (2007): 59-86.
Pachano, Simon. “Ecuador: Two Years of Uncertainty” Working paper, Real Instituto Eleano, 2007.
Jon Bright. “Bolivia: a national clash over multiple worlds.” Fundacion par alas Relaiones Internacionales y el Dialogo Exterior. http://www.fride.org/publication/475/bolivia-a-national-clash-over-multiple-worlds
Conaghan, Catherine and Carlos de la Torre. “The Permanent Campaign of Rafael Correa: Making Ecuador’s Plebiscitary Presidency” The International Journal of Press/Politics, Vol. 13, No. 3, (2008): 267-284
