Ecuadorians reject corruption

In voting to approve a new progressive and nationalistic constitution, the vast majority of Ecuadorians have again scored a major victory against the traditional Right and the capitalist "owners" of the country.

Last year an unprecedented 81% of Ecuadorians had voted to create a Constituent Assembly with a mandate to propose a new Magna Carta for the country, and then gave the supporters of President Rafael Correa a healthy majority in the Assembly. Now, in a referendum held on Sept. 28 by an overwhelming margin of nearly three to one, the people of Ecuador voted to adopt the new constitution.

The new constitution provides for the protection of the nation's natural resources (including land and water) and creates a pluri-national state in which the rights of women, racial minorities, and Indigenous communities are protected. It places a major emphasis on human rights; allows for civil union for Gays and Lesbians; free health care for seniors, women who are pregnant and nursing, and those with major illness such as cancer and AIDS; and free public education up to the university level. It prohibits the establishment of foreign military bases within its borders--Correa has already made it clear that the large U.S. airbase in the major port of Manta will be dismantled when the treaty that created it expires in 2009.

Although the new constitution was put together in haste and is an unwieldy document of more than 200 pages (and it remains to be seen if the government can generate the financial resources or has the capacity to create the institutional infrastructure to comply with its objectives in a timely manner), its approval by the Ecuadorian masses represents another victory for Correa, a U.S.-educated economist who refers to himself as a "Christian Socialist." It provides a basis for continued reforms aimed at the various forms of capitalist imperialism that have plagued the country since its inception. This includes a determination to redistribute wealth through taxation and subsidies, protective tariffs for local industry, and fair labor laws. The government already has shown a determination to challenge unfair international debt and to expel industries that violate its laws and damage the environment. Although the government is not without its internal critics, it is by and large supported by all the progressive social movements in the country, along with the Indigenous communities and organized labor.

What is perhaps most astonishingly refreshing is to see nearly seven out of every ten Ecuadorians say "Yes" to a constitutional initiative that resoundingly rejects the corrupt traditional political parties of the Right, the financial and capitalist industrial sector, the traditional economic oligarchies, and the reactionary hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. This in spite of a Rovian-type campaign against the constitution that was based upon distortion and fear; raised the specter of dictatorship, rampant abortion, homosexuality and godlessness; and which had the support of the majority of the media, the Church, the banks, the industrial sector, the political pundits, and the far right Social Christian Party, which has ruled on the Coast of Ecuador for decades (I find it fascinating to ponder why Ecuadorians seem to be more "Rove-proof" than North Americans).

This, of course, does not mean that the capitalist class and the Right are acknowledging defeat. As with the four separatist provinces in Bolivia, which have brought that country to the brink of civil war through U.S.-supported sabotage and right-wing terrorism (see "U.S. plots with right wing in Bolivia"), Jaime Nebot, Mayor of Guayaquil and leader of the Social Christian Party, has threatened to initiate a separatist movement (which is specifically prohibited by the new constitution) and has made it clear that resistance to progressive reform will continue with a vengeance. However, his hand has been weakened significantly by the overwhelming "Yes" vote at the national level, and even a slim plurality over the "No" vote both in Guayaquil and the broader coastal Province of Guayas.

All this also does not mean that Correa necessarily understands the law of value and is prepared to lead a frontal attack against capital itself. He is radically progressive in a nationalist sense, but not a socialist in the Marxist sense. Nonetheless, he symbolically heads a movement that represents the masses of Ecuadorians who are passionate for fundamental change against the corruption and plundering of the nation's wealth, which has left a legacy of poverty and hunger. It is a movement that is not going to rest until a genuine humanistic society replaces that of inherent capitalist exploitation.

--Participant/Observer, Ecuador

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