The 2006 Election and the Writing of a New Constitution

Rafael Correa’s entrance to the executive office was contextualised by decades of political turmoil in Ecuador. Prior to Correa’s presidency, the 2005 ousting of Lucio Gutiérrez (a populist claiming to battle corruption and embrace leftist politics, who instead turned on his mandate and embraced neoliberal economic policies) had been followed by a fragile caretaker government, headed by Alfredo Palacios. This

government attempted to address some of the political, economic and social issues that generated such discontent within the Ecuadorian public; while it was largely unsuccessful in achieving these aims, it did serve to “catapult economy minister Rafael Correa into the public limelight” (Silva, 2009 pp. 191).

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Correa ran for the presidency in 2006 and won with 56.7% of the vote against a conservative opponent (Silva, 2009). He campaigned on an overhaul of the political system itself and pledged to hold a referendum on a constituent assembly that would have the ability to dissolve congress and re-write the constitution. He based his rhetoric on an anti-neoliberal stance by asserting such promises as severing ties with the IMF and the World Bank, and rejecting free-trade agreements with the United States in favour of fostering partnerships with Latin American nations, evidently following trends from Chávez’s Venezuela.

Correa travelled the country, asserting his presence and promoting his “citizen’s revolution”, moralising, dividing and depicting the election and the political playing field as “a contest between good and evil: the honest citizenry […] confronting the clase

politica” (Levitsky & Loxton, 2013). He ran “against the system itself” and called for an

end to “the domination of the traditional parties” (Levitsky & Loxton, 2013); this rhetoric laid the groundwork for what would come to be the most significant overhaul of the Ecuadorian political system for decades. It is no surprise, then, that Correa’s election sparked a political crisis of the establishment. Within hours of his inauguration Correa immediately set into action one of his campaign promises by calling a referendum for the proposed constituent assembly; this was, in Correa’s view, his way to bypass the

institutions that had previously destabilised Ecuadorian politics and destroyed other presidencies (Silva, 2009 pp. 193).

The political resistance that Correa met from within congress was outmatched by his support from the public; mass demonstrations occurred as a result of congress’ attempt to block Correa’s plans to dissolve congress and proceed to write a new constitution. The overwhelming support ensured that the referendum took place and passed with an 82% approval from the public, highlighting both the popularity for Correa himself as well as his mission. Correa’s ability to mobilise mass support is evidently attributable to his successful populist approach – he had been able to obtain significant emotional investment from large sections of the population. Indeed, it was Correa’s populism that ensured momentum was maintained; one of the often referenced lines that Correa used shortly after winning the election was “We won the elections, but not power. Power is controlled by economic interests, the banks, the partidocracia, and the media connected to the banks” (Conaghan, 2008 pp. 47). Likewise, his campaigning also achieved this mobilisation and emotional investment in the early stages of his political

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journey, therefore when the time came for his support to rally in order to ensure that their “citizen’s revolution” would maintain momentum, they did not shy away. When it came to the forming of the constituent assembly, Correa’s newly formed Alianza País Party was incredibly successful, obtaining 80 of the 130 seats. Congress was then dissolved

immediately, and the constitution abolished and re-written.

Correa often referred to “postneoliberalism” as the framework by which he and his government would operate; self-described postneoliberal experts even made up the core of his political circle (de la Torre, 2012). The fundamental issue which must be acknowledged here is that the very concept of “postneoliberalism” is in no way a coherent ideology, let alone an agenda for policy production and implementation. As has been discussed extensively by scholars such as Bakker and Yates (2013), and Grugel and Riggirozzi (2012), the concept of “postneoliberalism” as it exists currently is very much framed as an antithesis to neoliberalism, manifesting in various forms according to individual social and political contexts. By utilising this term so extensively combined with his unidirectional discursive relationship, Correa reinforces the conceptual

construction that his “citizen’s revolution” represents the given alternative to the “dark neoliberal night”, thereby closing the intellectual and discursive space for other

progressive alternatives.

We can see that Correa’s Alianza País party has come to dwarf all other parties of the Ecuadorian left, as well as demonise them, assorted social movements and the parties of the right through use of media (Conaghan 2008; de la Torre 2013; Weyland 2013). Correa’s relationship with all of the aforementioned bodies has been turbulent; all sources of opposition have found themselves under pressure from his government in various ways, from heavy fines and dissolving of organisations, to charges of terrorism and sabotage (Becker 2013; Conaghan 2008; de la Torre 2013).

Given the demonstrable role of social movements in the reshaping of Ecuadorian politics, Correa has struggled to maintain a healthy relationship with them. Notably, his agrarian policies have favoured large-scale economic development and his social

programmes are fuelled with extraction-based capital, therefore causing processes of alienation with many of the rural communities from within which much of the resistance dynamics are based (Becker, 2013). Instead of mediating with them, Correa instead chooses to demonise them as “special interest groups” without legitimate grievances (de

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la Torre, 2013 pp. 38). Given that it was under Correa that the constitutionalisation of the rights of nature took place, he certainly maintains a highly contradictory approach to the inclusion of these groups.

Both the indigenous movement and the environmental movement were

instrumental in President Correa’s rise to power (Gerlach, 2017). CONAIE in particular had not only orchestrated and led the popular revolt against his predecessor, Lucio Gutiérrez, but they also (along with ECUARUNARI) assisted in generating indigenous support for the writing of a new constitution, which was so crucial to Correa’s mandate. However, from the outset the relationship was never a simple one. During Correa’s campaign, indigenous support was not unanimous and was in fact often conflicted with scepticism. However, seeing an opportunity to make progress on the advancement of indigenous issues at the state level, it was the promise of re-writing the constitution that swayed indigenous support in Correa’s favour (Webber, 2011).

Ecuador’s new constitution spans 444 articles, and includes not just the rights of nature, but also the revolutionary development philosophy of the Buen Vivir, or Sumak Kawsay (living well). Again part of the proposed counter-hegemonic “postneoliberal movement”, it was claimed by the constituent assembly (and later President Correa) that this approach to development was grounded in indigenous sensibilities and ways of knowing, however the extent to which this is true is debatable (see for example Gudynas, 2011; Walsh, 2010).

The constituent assembly was headed by Alberto Acosta, an economist and environmentalist who, at the time, was a close ally of Rafael Correa and would go on to serve as his finance minister until the two parted ways due to ideological differences. Acosta was instrumental in achieving the constitutionalisation of the rights of nature and strategically fought throughout the period that the new constitution was being written for these rights to be included (for a full account of this see Tanasescu, 2013). The

constitutionalisation process was complex and rights of nature advocates came up against significant resistance from other members of the constituent assembly, both from

members who did not entirely understand the idea as well as from those who

fundamentally disagreed with the proposal (Tanasescu, 2013). Eventually the influence of members of the constituent assembly belonging to Pachakutik would provide the indigenous pressure and support that would assist Acosta in convincing others of the

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merit of the rights of nature. However, this support did not come easily; as I state earlier in this chapter, indigenous individuals and groups felt that the rights of nature could potentially end up as another way for the government to regulate and control indigenous lands, as well as attempt to represent an untranslatable conceptualisation of nature in a linear manner (Tanasescu, 2016c). In the end, it was the core principles of the rights of nature, and their shared affinity with both the indigenous movement and the

environmental movement, particularly in the context of strengthening resistance to natural resource extraction (seen historically as vital to the alliance between these two

movements) that enabled indigenous support on the issue.

As both Tanasescu (2013) and Espinosa (2015) illustrate, while actors within the environmental movement in Ecuador were responsible for bringing the idea of rights for nature to the discussions taking place during the re-writing of Ecuador’s constitution, it was the support of the indigenous movement which proved instrumental to the success of the formalisation of these rights. However, the issue of conflicting value systems and cultural politics was salient even at this time, as indigenous groups viewed these rights as useful only in as much as they represented a tool for protecting indigenous rights,

particularly around claims to land and territory (Espinosa, 2015, pp. 12). This contrasted with the environmentalists’ stance, which promoted the rights of nature as a progressive and eco-philosophical advancement, particularly in the context of anti-extractivist economic development, thereby immediately binding the rights of nature with a “double personality” (Tanasescu, 2013, pp. 850).

Throughout this historical trajectory, then, we can see that the constitutionalisation of the rights of nature in Ecuador emerged from a specific and multifaceted historical process of resistance and contestation. The case of Ecuador would go on to spur a growing international movement based upon the establishing, promoting, and defending of these rights. However, the Ecuadorian case would also be revealed as a story both of successes and failures, with significant implications for the movement as it increasingly existed and operated within and across geographical scales.