There can be few more spectacular sights in Latin America than El Reventador,
the volcano that has been erupting so furiously over the past few weeks that it
has cast its dust over the streets of Quito 60 miles away. Now the capital of
Ecuador is experiencing the latest in a series of Latin American eruptions of
a different nature: the peaceful election of a leftwing president whose declared
enemies are corruption and poverty and who looks like the antithesis of the kind
of leader the United States would like to see in the region.
The weekend victory of the 45-year-old former colonel Lucio Gutierrez encapsulates
the change of mood throughout Latin America. On Monday, a general strike is planned
in Venezuela as part of an attempt to oust the president, Hugo Chavez, a man whose
path to power was similar to that of Gutierrez, and the country teeters on the
edge of civil war. In Argentina, economic catastrophe could also herald seismic
political change within the next few months.
Before the dust settles, Gutierrez's achievement deserves to be recognized.
He easily defeated Alvaro Noboa, the Bonita banana billionaire and the country's
richest businessman. The contrast could not have been greater. While Gutierrez
had the backing of the indigenous Indian population, came from a humble background
and was a former Latin American military pentathlete champion, Noboa was a chum
of Charlton Heston, a polo player and the owner of a home on New York's Park Avenue
who heavily outspent his rival. On the walls of the city over the past few weeks,
a piece of graffiti perhaps captured the national mood. It used Noboa's initials
to spell out in Spanish the slogan: Not Another Dumb Oligarch in Power.
The success of Gutierrez fits into what is now a clear pattern in Latin American
politics. It follows the landslide victory of Lula da Silva in Brazil, which was
also based on a platform of battling inequality. In March, Argentina goes to the
polls and the current frontrunner is Adolfo Rodriguez Saa, another populist who
has challenged the authority of the IMF and the rule of the market. And it coincides
with recent advances for the left in Bolivia and Peru.
Ecuador is a small country of 12 million people but it has - in common with
its larger, less tranquil neighbors, Colombia and Peru, and with most of Latin
America - the massive problems of debt repayment, poverty, inequality, unemployment
and government corruption. Like other Latin Americans, Ecuadoreans were led to
believe that neo-liberalism, the global marketplace and the adoption of IMF policies
would lead to better days. But like their counterparts, they have found that life
for most over the past decade has not improved and may even have worsened. Many
who voted for the untried Gutierrez and Da Silva felt they had little left to
lose.
The most explosive countries are clearly Venezuela, where the radical Chavez
faces opposition from all sides, including parts of the military, and Argentina,
where popular discontent with free market policies grows sharper every day. Crucially,
the US has signaled its disapproval of Chavez, a man they see as too close to
Fidel Castro, and those who seek to remove him before his elected term of office
have been left in little doubt that they will do so with the tacit agreement of
Washington. But the US now has to recognize that it cannot impose its preferred
candidates on countries impatient for change.
Gutierrez has already made it clear that he does not seek confrontation with
either the US or the IMF. He may not have been as enthusiastic as his rival in
welcoming the US troops stationed in their "anti-drug" base in Manta in Ecuador,
but he has made clear that they can stay and that the oil companies can continue
to export his country's resources. The Wall Street Journal declared him last week
someone with whom the financial establishment could do business, and halfway down
his list of qualifications is a diploma from the Inter-American Defense College
in Washington.
"This is the most difficult time because now we have to start to turn what
the people want into reality," Gutierrez said after his election. He knows that
his room for maneuver is tiny, the obstacles in his way huge and that the effect
the new president will have on corruption and poverty may be less than volcanic.
Pragmatism, not revolution, is the word of the day.
Last week Gutierrez jokingly promised that if he was elected, there would be
no more volcanic dust in Quito. He may have already failed on that promise, but
he is still part of a wind of change - born of hope rather than resignation -
that is blowing through Latin America. Many neighboring countries will be watching
to see how the new presidents ride that wind.
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
###
