ECUADOR: CONGRESS VOTES TO OUST PRESIDENT ABDALA BUCARAM

by Juan Ponce,

Poder Obrero of Peru

On 5-6 February a massive general strike occurred in Ecuador. The country was completely paralysed. Around two million people, out of the 12 million Ecuadorians, took the streets. As a consequence of it, the Ecuadorian Congress voted on Feb. 6 to remove the President Abdala Bucaram from office. The president of Congress, Fabian Alarcon, was named interim president of the country. The crisis was far from over, however, since Bucaram was refusing to step down and Vice President Rosalia Arteaga had issued a proclamation naming herself president. As a result, Ecuador had at the same time and for more than two days the unstable situation of being led by three civilian presidents. In the last two decades Ecuador experienced 20 general strikes. The recent one was convened by the Workers United Front (FUT), the Coordinadora de Movimientos Sociales and the Confederation of Indian Nations. All the opposition, the mayors of the main three Ecuadorian cities and several business and professional chambers supported the strike. In a very curious act the last four Ecuadorian presidents - themselves opposed by general strikes during their governments - backed the 5-6 February total stoppage. The demonstrations in Ecuador have escalated since early January because the population were against the increases in electricity, phone and other basic services. The unions protested against the privatisation and the new currency convertibility plans. The bourgeois opposition tried to divert the movement and to transform it in a protest against the "concessions" to Peru, the extreme corruption and the "madness" behaviour of a president who likes to sing in pop concerts and led a football club. Bucaram was in Lima in January as the first Ecuadorian president to travel to Peru on an official visit.

Ecuador and Peru were at war in 1941 and they had several military border clashes in the last 16 years -most recently in April 1995. Bucaram said that he wanted to forbid the mistakes of both countries and to achieve a final peaceful solution. This was put in question by the opposition who said that Peru had taken a long piece of Ecuadorian territory and that their 'fatherland has nothing to forgive' Peru for. Bucaram's fall from grace in the short six months since he took office has been described as a freefall as he has quickly alienated almost the entire country. After campaigning on a populist platform, his price hikes and other economic measures disillusioned the poor who had backed him, while also angering business and civic leaders.

The neo-liberal right didn't like a president who was very populist and didn't want to implement more radical privatisation. The union bureaucrats wanted to create an anti-Bucaram bloc between the right and the left. They organised a "Patriotic Front" which demanded a "provisional government". Ecuador's Constitution is vague on who replaces a sitting president, although Congress's power to remove a president from office is clear. By citing Bucaram's "mental incapacity," only a simple majority approval in the 82-seat Congress was required, avoiding a lengthy impeachment process. On February 6 Congress met in an emergency session and voted 44-34 to remove Bucaram from office for "mental incapacity." Congress then voted Alarcon in as interim president and called for new elections within a year. Bucaram declared a 'state of siege and mobilisation'. With that the state has the right to arrest anyone or to confiscate property. He also announced that all the last prices increases were to be annulled and wages increased 25%. Nevertheless, he didn't receive any support from the people or the army. The army declared that it will not intervene in politics but it gave some backing to the vice-president. A new deal was then arrived at. The congress accepted Alarcon as president but only for a very short period of time until the parliament has to decide on a new interim government which must then call for general elections within a year.

Workers in Ecuador have to maintain their class independence and opposition against all the different bourgeois factions and presidents. The labour, indian and poor peoples organisations need to create their own "parliament". A national workers and popular assembly needs to be launched and based in delegates elected and recallable in rank and file assemblies. Such bodies should try to became a real dual power with the possibility to have their own self-defence militias, to unionise the troops and to control enterprises and urban and rural areas. A limited general strike stopped a better fight. Instead of trying to build an anti-Bucaram "patriotic" popular front, the workers and peasants assemblies need a National Strike Committee to led the struggle in a more democratic and militant way.

The demand for a constituent assembly is on the agenda. However, the left have to distinguish it from the right who also want constitutional changes with the aim of helping the privatisation process. A constituent assembly is no more than a more democratic bourgeois parliament. We are in favour of it because the proletariat needs to win the battle for consistent democracy. However, our main tasks have to be to transform the strike and Indian committees into soviet-type bodies and to develop the self-defence groups into militias. The workers and peasants organisations have to take power and establish a proletarian republic. The self-determination of the original nations and the solution of the boundary problems with Peru could only be achieved in a socialist federation of Latin America.

In the last years the Latin America bourgeoisie was trying to implement a neo-liberal model through stable and militarised democracies. It is the first time that a general strike brought down a newly popular elected government. The workers in other countries could feel how powerful could be their actions. On Tuesday 11 the Colombian state workers started an indefinite general strike. On March it is probable that the Bolivian Workers Confederation (COB) will launch the four indefinite general strike in four years. In Argentina there was a series of national stoppages. The Latin American working class is recovering from heavy attacks and it could start to change the balance of forces in the entire hemisphere.