Pachakutik and the Rise and Decline of the Ecuadorian Indigenous Movement

Chapter 4. Pachakutik and the Politics of the Ballot

 Chapter 4 Pachakutik and the Politics of the Ballot Our goals are to construct a new country, to completely eliminate the corruption that has damaged the country, to consolidate a truly participatory and representative democracy. —José María Cabascango, Pachakutik national coordinator, 1996 The Surprisingly Impressive Results of the 1996 Elections with very limited resources, precious little time, and some confusion, CONAIE and the CMS launched a new political movement—the Pachakutik Plurinational Unity Movement–New Country (MUPP-NP), or Pachakutik —that would contest the 1996 elections. Heady with optimism, Pachakutik quickly mobilized across the country. While the initial plan was for Pachakutik to nominate candidates for local office only (interview with Luis Macas, Quito, May, 2000; Weiss 1999), the movement put up candidates for all levels of government,from mayors and council members in municipal and cantonal offices, to national and provincial members of Ecuador’s National Congress, and even for the presidency. Luis Macas, an indigenous activist from Saraguro in Loja Province and president of CONAIE at the time, was Pachakutik’s candidate for a national deputy seat in Congress,1 and Freddy Ehlers Zurita, a television personality who stressed environmental issues, was chosen as the presidential candidate.  chapter 4 Ehlers was already well known throughout Ecuador because of his television show and the widespread desire among Ecuadorians for change after four years of the conservative Durán government minimized concerns about Ehlers’s status as a political novice. Also, while Ehlers was not officially the candidate of the Democratic Left (ID), that powerful party did not field a candidate in 1996,and a number of former elected officials and militants from ID ran under Pachakutik’s banner or actively supported Ehlers’s candidacy. Thus, his presidential campaign provided local and provincial MUPP-NP candidates a level of recognition and publicity they would not otherwise have had. This combination of factors may not, in itself, have attracted many indigenous votes but it undoubtedly increased the number of mestizo and other nonindigenous voters willing to cast their ballots for the MUPP-NP lists. This new political movement had only five months from formation to election day and in that time had to collect valid signatures from enough registered voters to field candidates at local, provincial, and national levels, recruitcandidatesforthevariousoffices,makeconsensualornegotiateddecisions on the ordering of candidates for multiple-seat lists (National Congress and city and provincial councils), raise funds, and campaign. Despite the short time and various obstacles, Ehlers and the movement were quite successful . Freddy Ehlers finished a close third in the presidential contest, with approximately 17 percent of all votes (including blank and nullified ballots), just behind top vote getter Jaime Nebot of the Social Christian Party (PSC) and Abdalá Bucaram of the Ecuadorian Roldosist Party (PRE). Bucaram would go on to easily defeat Nebot in a runoff, winning lopsided victories in those provinces with substantial indigenous presence. More important for our focus, the Pachakutik movement won eight congressional seats, which constituted almost 10 percent of Congress and made this coalition movement the fourth largest bloc in Congress. Considering all types of elected offices, the Pachakutik movement won a total of seventy-six positions in 1996 (TSE 1996). Particularly noteworthy was the election of Luis Macas as a national deputy in Congress,one of twelve such seats in that body under the rules of election at that time. Of the seven provincial deputy seatswonbyLista18(thenumbergiventoMUPP-NPandstillretainedtothis day), one was in Pichincha Province, which went to Napoleón Saltos, one of the cofounders of the CMS; one in Cotopaxi to Leonidas Iza, an indigenous activist who would later become president of CONAIE; one in Chimborazo to indigenous militant Miguel Lluco, who in 1998 would be selected as the  pachakutik and the politics of the ballot national coordinator of Pachakutik; two seats were in Azuay, won by allies of Ehlers; one in the Oriente province of Napo by the indigenous leader José Aviles; and one more in the Oriente province of Pastaza by another indígena, Hector Villamil. Thus, four of the seven provincial congressional seats won by Pachakutik were held by indígenas, and when we include Macas, five of the eight original congressional seats won in 1996 went to indigenous men. Though it would be clear even without the region-specific results, table 4.1showsthatin1996thecoastalprovincesprovidedverylittlesupporteither to Ehlers or to the Pachakutik lists for Congress or local offices.2 In absolute numbers,most of the support for...