ECUADOR: CORREA'S PLEBISCITARY PRESIDENCY

Abstract

At the end of September, the electorate handed Correa the second of the two prizes for which he had vigorously campaigned, awarding 80 seats in the 130-member constituent assembly to his Movement for a Proud and Sovereign Country (MPAIS).1 In a land long plagued by fragmented parties and divided governments, the astounding majority that voters delivered to the 44-year-old U.S.-trained economist and former economy minister was unprecedented. Analyzing the evolution of the U.S. presidency, Lowi proposed the term as a shorthand expression for the way in which presidents can use direct, unmediated appeals to public opinion in order to govern "over the heads" of other institutions, especially legislatures.4 Putting his own charisma and a savvy media team to work, Correa quickly mastered the art of mobilizing public opinion via polls, the media, and the streets in order to disorient, demoralize, and disorganize political opponents during his relentless pursuit of the constituent assembly.

In his first year as Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa scored two electoral victories that went far toward turning his promise of constitutional revolution into a reality. On 15 April 2007, Correa's proposal to call elections for a constituent assembly charged with writing an entirely new constitution won a massive 82 percent "yes" vote. At the end of September, the electorate handed Correa the second of the two prizes for which he had vigorously campaigned, awarding 80 seats in the 130-member constituent assembly to his Movement for a Proud and Sovereign Country (MPAIS).1 In a land long plagued by fragmented parties and divided governments, the astounding majority that voters delivered to the 44-year-old U.S.-trained economist and former economy minister was unprecedented. Ecuador's new constitution will be written on terms set by the charismatic and hugely popular young president.

In the months preceding the September elections, Correa depicted the assembly race as the "mother of all battles," an "all-or-nothing" contest on which rested the future of his proposed "citizens' revolution." The language, while dramatic, did not exaggerate the administration's ambitions. Elected in a 26 November 2006 runoff, Correa debuted as a president fully identified with the most radical current in Latin America's widely discussed political "left turn."2 At his inauguration, he embraced presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia, and hoisted a replica of Simon Bolivar's sword (a gift from Chavez) while delivering his first address to the nation. Promising to end what he often referred to as the "long and sad night of neoliberalism," Correa pledged to put Ecuador on the road to achieving a "socialism of the twenty-first century."

Like Chavez and Morales, Correa came to office with the view that winning the presidency was, at best, a prelude to a more profound struggle for political power, one that would involve confronting rivals both within the state and in society at large. Each of the three presidents sees a new constitution in his country as the essential starting point for a leftist transformation there. Correa, like Chavez in his first presidential run in 1998, campaigned as the quintessential outsider, a maverick backed by his own antiestablishment organization. Blocking the road to Correa's proposed "deep and radical" constitutional revolution was an array of state institutions that remained largely in the hands of the traditional par-tidocracia (party dominance) that Correa so derided. Equally resistant to change, in Correa's view, was the business establishment. Reconfiguring the "correlation of forces" was how Correa described his mission as president. "Let's not be naive," Correa advised supporters. "We won the elections, but not power. Power is controlled by economic interests, the banks, the partidocracia, and the media connected to the banks."3

In his quest to shake up Ecuador's power structure, Correa used his first year in office to fashion a presidency that can be called plebiscitary in a double sense. First, true to the literal meaning of the word, the president tied his administration, his very continuance in office, to winning two elections in a row: first to approve the idea of a new constituent assembly, and then to fill the seats in this body with supporters of his views. He framed both votes as referenda on his presidency, warning that a defeat would mean "I'll go home." More opportunities for the electorate to line up for or against Correa lay ahead, as 2008 promised to bring a referendum on the new constitution, followed in all likelihood by fresh national elections. Correa has insisted all along, moreover, that he is leading a "permanent campaign" and fully intends to run again.

Second, the Correa presidency also fits and extends the definition of a plebiscitary presidency as originally described by political scientist Theodore Lowi. Analyzing the evolution of the U.S. presidency, Lowi proposed the term as a shorthand expression for the way in which presidents can use direct, unmediated appeals to public opinion in order to govern "over the heads" of other institutions, especially legislatures.4 Putting his own charisma and a savvy media team to work, Correa quickly mastered the art of mobilizing public opinion via polls, the media, and the streets in order to disorient, demoralize, and disorganize political opponents during his relentless pursuit of the constituent assembly. Never have Ecuadorians seen a president so obsessed with, and so skillful at, communications and public relations.

In this extreme version of the plebiscitary presidency, Correa did more than just govern "over the head" of Ecuador's 100-member, unicameral National Congress. With the public's overwhelming approval, he rendered Congress totally irrelevant. Campaigning to win hearts, minds, and votes, Correa managed to upend what was left of Ecuador's tattered institutions and craft a potent presidency. In doing so, Correa appears to have closed the book on a decade of political instability. Whether this powerful president and the constituent assembly will work in concert to produce a new generation of genuine, sustainable democratic institutions?or whether the hyperplebiscitary presidency becomes entrenched in the new constitutional order?is the question that hangs over Ecuadorian politics as Correa enters the second year of his administration.

In Search of Presidential Power

Ecuador with its roughly 14 million people is the world's largest exporter of bananas, and is also among Latin America's major oil exporters (with more than half its hydrocarbon exports going to the United States). According to the World Bank, Ecuador's is a lower-middle-income economy. Like its neighbors in the Andean region, the country wrestles with poverty, severe income inequality, and tensions rooted in regional, class, and ethnic cleavages. In the 1990s, Ecuador's politics was marked by the ascent of one of Latin America's most active indigenous movements, led by the Confederation of Ecuadorian Indigenous Nationalities (CONAIE). At the same time, Ecuador became synonymous with political upheaval and the syndrome that Arturo Valenzuela has described as "presidencies interrupted."5 Between 1997 and 2005, three elected presidents?Abdala Bucaram, Jamil Mahuad, and Lucio Gutierrez?were forced to leave office early when political crises and street protests handed Congress and the military pretexts for unseating them.

Analysts attributed this record of instability to multiple dysfunctions associated with the party system and its leadership.6 Since the transition away from military rule in 1979, Ecuador has been among Latin America's leaders in party-system fragmentation and electoral volatility. Ideological and programmatic consistency have been rare commodities as party elites have acted according to unpredictable mixtures of electoral calculations and personal animosities. In Congress, alliances have been ersatz and transactional. Governmental accountability has been nonexistent.

The legal system, widely seen as a corrupt extension of the party system, has little credibility. Fielding one of the larger caucuses in Congress, the rightist Social Christian Party (PSC) was able to dominate the process of selecting higher-court judges, feeding the sense that the judiciary is the thoroughly politicized tool of partisan forces. In the "anything goes" atmosphere of Ecuadorian public life, cold-blooded career calculations and personal vendettas have routinely trumped principles. The party elites' short-term and instrumental approach turned the constitution and laws into malleable contraptions, easily manipulated in the face of this or that shifting exigency. Removing presidents from office became the most extreme manifestation of the instrumentalism that had come to permeate the political system.7

Average citizens saw little reason to believe in a game so awash in avarice, corruption, and incompetence. The economic crisis of 1999-2000, played out during the implementation of neoliberal reform, was a jarring and dislocating experience that led massive numbers of Ecuadorians to go abroad in search of work. The traumatizing freeze on bank deposits in 1999 and the subsequent dollarization of the economy in 2000 only deepened the public's resentment of politicians. Surveys reflected the acute crisis of legitimacy that afflicted Ecuador's institutions. Democracy audits, conducted in 2001, 2004, and 2006, respectively, showed Ecuadorians expressing extremely low levels of confidence in Congress, the parties, and the national government generally.8

Rafael Correa entered the 2006 presidential race keenly aware of the public's antipolitical mood and the precarious tenure of presidents. His own meteoric rise to prominence had come on the heels of the mass demonstrations in Quito that had forced President Lucio Gutierrez to abandon the presidential palace in April 2005. Known as the rebellion of the forajidos (outlaws), the Quito protests exploded when Gutierrez made a political deal that allowed for the return from exile of Abdala Bucaram, the former president who had been ousted in 1997 and accused of corruption.9 Correa, a young economics professor with a doctorate from the University of Illinois, joined the demonstrators demanding Gutierrez's ouster. Vice-President Alfredo Palacio, the incoming president, tapped Correa to serve as minister of the economy. His tenure was brief but notable. He quickly established himself as an ardent nationalist and virulent public critic of neoliberal policies.

Drawing support from small, dispersed groups on the left and what remained of the forajido movement, Correa quickly assembled MPAIS as his electoral vehicle for the 2006 race. Establishing his antisystem credentials, Correa made two key decisions that shaped the course of the campaign and set the parameters for his first year in office. Embracing the forajido movement's demands for drastic political reform, Correa promised voters that he would do everything in his power to convene an assembly to write a new constitution. In Correa's view, a new constitution would not only redesign governmental institutions, but would lay the legal basis for reestablishing the state's central role in regulating and managing the economy. A new basic law would cleanse the body politic of its dysfunctional institutions and at the same time mark a definitive break with neoliberalism. To ensure that the assembly would be true to its transformative mission, Correa argued that this body would need to be invested with "full powers" to overrule or dissolve and replace all existing institutions. With such authority, the assembly could do anything from suspending the 1998 Constitution to disbanding the incumbent Congress and handing greater powers to the president.

Correa matched his "maximalist" position on the constitutional assembly with another critical decision. He announced that MPAIS would decline to run any candidates in the congressional elections that were to be staged concurrently with the first round of the presidential election in October 2006. With this one bold stroke, Correa both unequivocally identified his candidacy with the voters' deeply antipolitical mood and accepted the risk that, if elected, he would assume office with zero assurance of legislative support and far greater assurance that legislators might move to oust him at any time.

The possibility of another interrupted presidency loomed, especially when it became clear that parties led by Correa's bitterest rivals were poised to control the incoming Congress. While not enjoying an absolute majority, the Institutional Renewal National Action Party (PRIAN) and the Patriotic Society Party (PSP) emerged from the October race with the two largest congressional caucuses. PRIAN was the electoral vehicle of Alvaro Noboa, the bombastic banana billionaire who is Ecuador's richest citizen. Known for sometimes falling to his knees and praying at campaign appearances,10 Noboa was making his third bid for the presidency. Former president and returned exile Lucio Gutierrez headed the PSP, with unmasked antipathy toward Correa and his fora-jido followers. Joining the anti-Correa alliance was the PSC, a once-powerful party led by former president Leon Febres Cordero (1984-88) that would see its support greatly diminish in the 15 October 2006 voting for Congress.

Garnering 22.8 percent of the vote, Correa took second place in the October 15 first round. This result assured him a runoff against Noboa, who had come in first with 26.8 percent. Correa's challenge was not just to win the second round, but to win in a decisive way and lay claim to a mandate for what was shaping up as a likely showdown with Congress over the constituent-assembly issue.

Crisscrossing his small, mountainous country as the contrarian candidate of change, the energetic Correa turned in a campaign-trail performance that was as nearly flawless as that of his savvy media and public-relations team.11 Young, handsome, and tireless, Correa was marketed as the hip, passionate, and tough leader who reveled in taking on Ecuador's establishment. By comparison, Noboa seemed mired in the past, reprising his evangelical style and the populist bravado of previous failed campaigns. Just hours after the polls closed on November 26, Correa's victory was clear. In the final vote count, Correa bested Noboa by 56.7 to 43.3 percent.

By the time Correa took the presidential oath in early 2007, he was even more popular, boasting a 73 percent approval rating. Putting their substantial political capital to use, the president and his cabinet immediately embarked on an integrated, multifaceted strategy to change the "correlation of forces" and push forward their design of transforming Ecuador by means of a new constitution. To achieve these aims?and to guard his presidency against being "interrupted"?Correa needed to buttress executive power, keep his opponents on the defensive, and paint his administration as fulfilling its promises of change.

Inducing Institutional Implosion

Throughout his 2006 campaign, Correa had laid the groundwork for a confrontation with Congress. He pilloried the political veterans of the legislature as dinosaurs, a class doomed to extinction. While Correa acknowledged the legislature's legal status, he insisted that the body lacked underlying political legitimacy, pointing to the dismal ratings that it received in public-opinion polls.

With the 2007 Congress under the control of a majority that opposed the new president and his plan for a constituent assembly, the stage was set for a potentially explosive showdown. On his inauguration day, Correa signed an executive decree mandating a nationwide vote (consulta popular) to approve the convening of a constituent assembly. Opponents called the decree unconstitutional, citing articles in the extant constitution that gave Congress a primary role in vetting constitutional reforms. Correa offered a contrary reading, pointing to an article that allowed the president to bypass Congress and hold a national vote on any issue of "transcendental importance." Correa asserted that the national consultation on the assembly did not constitute a project of "constitutional reform" per se. Rather, it was a plan to scrap the current constitution altogether, and therefore unarguably of transcendental importance.

Admittedly, the 1998 Constitution's confusing language gave both Congress and Correa ample room to assert the legitimacy of their rival claims. Yet both sides understood that the conflict's outcome would hinge less on legal arguments than on public opinion and the calculations of various legislators and authorities in other key institutions, especially the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) and the Constitutional Tribunal (TC).

With 73 percent of the public backing the idea of an assembly and 59 percent siding with the executive's plan to bypass Congress, Correa went on the offensive. Sending his executive decree to the TSE, Correa warned that should that body (then headed by a PRIAN appointee) refuse to execute his order, he was prepared to create an ad hoc electoral tribunal. The TSE thereupon punted the plan to Congress for approval and amendments. Correa called for public protests against the TSE and the legislature. With pressure building and its own ranks divided, Congress backed down and approved the plan for a national consultation to convoke constituent-assembly elections, but added language meant to curb the "full powers" of that assembly and prohibit any future dissolution of Congress. The TSE quickly announced that the elections would be held on April 15. But unexpectedly and with no explanation, the TSE voted to approve a revised decree submitted by the president which restored the "full powers" provision in the statute authorizing the assembly elections.

Correa's foes in Congress howled that the TSE must have surrendered to government bribes or threats. In a move that violated the standard procedures for removing TSE appointees, the congressional majority voted to sack TSE chief Jorge Acosta. The TSE replied in kind, voting to strip 57 legislators of their seats on the grounds that they were obstructing the electoral process by trying to remove the electoral tribunal's head. When the deposed legislators showed up for work, they were greeted by angry mobs and the National Police barring them from entering the building. Under orders from the Ministry of Government and Police, law officers ushered in 57 new legislators, the legally designated substitutes (suplentes) for the deposed incumbents. Leaving their previous partisan loyalties with PRIAN and PSP at the door, many of the new legislators declared themselves to be independents who would support the Correa administration.

The TSE's government-backed sacking of opposition legislators led to another institutional conflict. Arguing that their removal had violated the constitution, deposed legislators took their case to the TC. When that body ruled in their favor, an angry progovernment mob converged on TC headquarters, giving justices no choice but to evacuate the building under police escort. Correa immediately dismissed the TC's ruling, suggesting that the justices should be prosecuted.12 The next day, the new pro-Correa majority in Congress voted to dismiss nine of the TC's justices, making the TC's ruling moot.

The net result of all the feuding was good for the administration. Without any need for Correa's direct intervention, the opposition and the other branches of government had been rendered powerless to stop the assembly process. While Correa led an aggressive public campaign to keep the pressure on Congress and the TSE, Minister of Government Gustavo Larrea worked effectively behind the scenes. He cajoled and enticed authorities to jump on the assembly bandwagon while making sure that the police were in place to control access to the disputed offices. Instead of smashing institutions and political opponents outright and risking the ire of the international community, Correa had engineered a process that had weakened and delegitimized the assembly's foes and the institutions that they had hoped to wield to stop it.

Permanent Campaign, Permanent Confrontation

From the start of his presidency, Correa clearly grasped the necessity of using the office as a bully pulpit for shaping public opinion and advancing his agenda for the constituent assembly. Correa has emerged as Ecuador's version of the "great communicator"?a leader who skillfully conveys popular, commonsense messages by means of a persona that appeals to a wide spectrum of the public. Guiding Correa's communications strategy as secretary of public administration is Vinicio Alvarado, the Guayaquil public-relations guru who designed Correa's innovative media strategy for the 2006 campaign.

The hallmark of a plebiscitary presidency is the drive to connect the president directly to voters, with minimal interference or "filtering" by parties, civil society groups, or the media. Continuing with the radio strategy developed during the campaign, Correa inaugurated his presidency with a two-hour weekly broadcast called "The President Dialogues with His Constituents." The Saturday-morning show, which airs on 154 stations around the country, provides Correa with a regular outlet for trumpeting his government's accomplishments and scolding his opponents. The program often airs in conjunction with the "traveling cabinets," during which the president and various ministers visit different locales to meet with local authorities, greet members of the general public, and appear at concerts or cultural events. The festive atmosphere surrounding Correa's visits provides fertile ground for politicking; the government made good use of the events to raise support before both the constituent-assembly referendum and the subsequent assembly elections.

Correa's media operation is coordinated by the Secretariat of Communication and run out of the presidential palace. The Secretariat has made deft use of paid advertising to publicize presidential initiatives and engage in what is referred to as a "values" campaign to promote national pride and patriotism. One frequently broadcast television commercial featured a montage of happy Ecuadorians singing the nostalgic grade-school song Patria (Homeland). Critics have offered a less sanguine interpretation of the government's goals, pointing to how the advertising messages seemingly collapse any distinction between the state and the Correa presidency. For example, Correa's party slogan has morphed into the official motto that appears on all government advertising, "La Patria Ya Es de Todos" (Now the Homeland Belongs to Everyone). Every government-sponsored television commercial ends with the same signature shot: Viewers see a vibrant man, photographed from a distance, who greets a spectacular Andean sunrise. His arms pump in a victory salute, an image that readily evokes the familiar sight of Correa on the campaign trail.

Matching this proactive communications strategy is Correa's own hyperactive approach to the presidency. He is a ubiquitous presence, the staple of every news cycle thanks to his tireless speechmaking and enthusiastic appearances at public events of every sort. Correa believes that among his roles as president should be that of unabashed cheerleader-in-chief. He has even gone so far as to say that his principal duty is to be a "motivator" who can "raise people's self esteem and morale."13

Correa's uplifting rhetoric, especially his emphasis on restoring dignity to downtrodden citizens and engendering national pride, has been an important part of the president's strategy. Equally important is the pattern of permanent attacks on all perceived opponents. During the first months of conflict over the constituent-assembly issue, politicians opposed to the assembly were the primary targets of the president's harangues and heard themselves called everything from mafiosi to clowns, vipers, wolves, fakes, cadavers, sell-outs, and swindlers. When Guayaquil mayor Jaime Nebot and notables from that city's civic board questioned government policies, they too found themselves on the receiving end of a presidential tongue lashing, dismissed as pelucones?reactionary bigwigs.

Correa's list of purported enemies has expanded to include segments of the mainstream media. While Correa enjoyed generally favorable coverage as a presidential candidate in 2006, his relationship with the media soured when he stepped up criticism of individual journalists and media owners whom he accused of conspiring to destabilize the government. Correa has begun routinely trashing the media as the tool of Ecuador's "oligarchy" and has invited voters to tune out the privately owned media in favor of his own radio show.

Replaying the antiestablishment card that served him so well in the 2006 race, Correa continued bashing his critics in the lead-up to the September 2007 elections for constituent-assembly representatives. But "going negative" was not the only, or even the most important, arrow in the government's quiver. Delivering on the promises of the 2006 campaign would be crucial to maintaining Correa's popularity and making his personal appeal work for MPAIS candidates as the 2007 constituent-assembly election neared.

Credibility, Performance, and Policy

During his first year in office, Correa enjoyed strong and mostly steady job-approval ratings ranging between 60 and 70 percent. He ranked as one of the most popular presidents in the Americas, sharing the top slot with Argentina's Nestor Kirchner. Like Kirchner, Correa began his presidency with a hugely popular move, slashing his own salary by nearly half.

Correa and MPAIS strategists insist that their success to date is explained by a simple fact: They have kept the promises that they made during the 2006 campaign. According to Secretary of Public Administration Vinico Alvarado, Correa's greatest political resource is his credibility, which hinges on the public's perception that he is a straight-talking leader who is driving the government to produce meaningful improvements in the quality of life.14

Partly out of political necessity, Correa's approach to governance is based on speed. To keep his poll numbers high in anticipation of the April and September 2007 election battles, Correa delivered a flurry of executive decrees that pleased a variety of constituents. Windfall profits from Ecuador's booming oil economy paved the way for increased government spending. Among his first executive decrees was an order that doubled the regular welfare payments to poor households from US$15 to $30 a month, a move that benefited nearly a tenth of all Ecuadorians. Correa also doubled the amount available for individual housing loans to $3,600. The poor got another boost when Correa enacted subsidies that halved the price of electricity for low-usage consumers. A variety of other programs expanded credit to microbusinesses, youth, and women. Social spending has been greatly eased by the president's power to declare "emergencies" that start the money flowing with virtually no red tape. From January through July 2007, Correa dispersed $215 million by declaring emergencies in ten sectors, ranging from education and health to the prison system. Emergency road construction, assigned to the army's corps of engineers, has been a boon to the military, helping to strengthen the ties between Correa and the armed forces.

Increased social spending has been one front in the broader push to recast public administration in line with Correa's vision of activist government. The makeover of the public sector is both substantive and symbolic. Highlighting his concern for the plight of Ecuadorians abroad, Correa created a new National Secretariat of the Migrant. To emphasize a new focus on citizenship rights, Correa renamed the Welfare Ministry the Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion.

These and other administrative changes are meant to reach constituencies that are important to building support for the president's project. Coordinating the presidency's programming directed at social movements and indigenous communities is the new Secretariat of Peoples, Social Movements, and Citizen Participation. As a counterweight to the powerful municipal administration led by political rival Mayor Jaime Nebot in Guayaquil (Ecuador's largest city, major port, and de facto economic capital), Correa created a new Ministry of the Littoral, a su-peragency that headquarters the operations of central-government ministries in Guayaquil. Not surprisingly, the ministry houses an office for the president, used during his frequent trips to the coast from the inland capital of Quito.

The activist approach is also apparent in economic policy. In keeping with Correa's promise to consign neoliberalism to the "trash bin of history," the administration has reasserted the state's strategic and regulatory role in the economy. For the first time in a quarter-century, the government in 2007 issued a comprehensive national-development plan. In a show of his more muscular approach to business regulation, Correa hiked taxes on foreign oil companies, raising the royalty tax on windfall profits from 50 percent to 99 percent. In keeping with his promise to increase regulation over the national banking system, Correa hounded bankers into lowering charges on banking transactions. Setting a frenetic pace along with a tone decidedly critical of the United States, Correa is forever at the forefront of new economic projects, seeking investment partners in Venezuela, Iran, and China, and reaching out to the Middle East by having Ecuador rejoin the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Counties (OPEC).

While critics dismiss many of Correa's policies as yet another example of the region's "petropopulism," public opinion has aligned firmly in favor of the president and his policies. In his high-energy approach to governance, Correa has successfully cast himself as the central protagonist of public life?the president who takes on multinational corporations, theorizes about "twenty-first-century socialism," delivers school uniforms and books, and regales listeners with his opinions on every facet of Ecuadorian life. As Lowi noted, the plebiscitary presidency is, by its very nature, a personal presidency: an office in which the public willingly invests great power with the expectation that the chief executive will act in extraordinary, perhaps heroic ways to solve problems. Correa has actively and systematically built such a presidency, methodically accruing ever-greater powers as he projects the image of an indefatigable, audacious leader.

The Assembly and Beyond

Both in personal appearances and on television, Correa campaigned fiercely in the weeks leading up to the September elections with his party's assembly candidates at his side. MPAIS reaped the benefits by sweeping the elections to a degree that few pundits had predicted. The president's movement took 80 seats in the 130-member assembly (73 for MPAIS itself and 7 for MPAIS in alliances with minor parties), leaving opposition parties trailing far behind. Gutierrez's PSP, regarded as a big winner in the 2006 races, secured just 18 seats.

Even worse was the performance of Noboa's PRIAN and the once-dominant PSC, which ended up with just 8 and 5 seats, respectively. The magnitude of MPAIS's victory was evident in the number of voters who cast straight tickets. A whopping 41 percent of all voters cast straight-ticket ballots for MPAIS. By comparison, the PSP and PRIAN garnered a mere 4 and 3.9 percent of their respective votes from straight-ticket voters.

MPAIS should find willing allies in small leftist parties including the indigenous-backed Pachacutik Movement, which won 6 seats. Moreover, MPAIS's control over the assembly is assured by the assembly statute approved in the April referendum. This law stipulates that only a simple majority of 66 votes is required to approve articles in the new constitution. As Correa readily acknowledged, the Ecuadorian assembly was expressly designed by the executive to avoid the stalemate and chronic conflicts that dogged Bolivia's constituent assembly thanks to its two-thirds majority rule.

In the absence of any significant opposition bloc inside the constituent assembly, Ecuador's political future now lies squarely in the hands of Correa and MPAIS. To date, the group has functioned as an umbrella for Correa supporters from a wide variety of backgrounds; former fora-jidos, leftists, and populists jumped on the Correa bandwagon, envisioning the presidency as a vehicle for reforms and perhaps even revolution. But MPAIS was born as an electoral operation, not a political party. Correa and a small circle of confidants (including assembly president and former energy minister Alberto Acosta) have kept a tight rein on the organization, as evidenced in the process for choosing assembly candidates.

While Correa is sensitive to the demands emanating from local communities, the disconnect between MPAIS and organized civil society, including groups on the left, is striking. In keeping with his plebiscitary style, Correa prefers to forge direct ties with particular constituencies rather than act through intermediaries such as CONAIE or other organizations of the left. As for business organizations, Correa has been decidedly aloof and uninterested in meeting with them.

On 29 November 2007, the constituent assembly convened at its official headquarters in Montecristi, a town in the coastal province of Manabi. In its first act, the assembly asserted its "full powers" vis-avis all existing institutions, including the Supreme Court and the TC. Delivering Congress the final coup de grace, the assembly assumed all lawmaking powers and declared the old legislature to be "in recess." In addition, the assembly sacked such congressionally appointed officials as the attorney-general, the controller-general, and the superintendents of banks and companies. With no institutional oversight and with the carte blanche provided by the assembly's majority, Correa is expected to enact swift, far-reaching changes in economic policy. These could include enhanced price controls in certain markets, more extensive state regulation of the mining sector, changes to ownership laws governing telecommunications, tax reform, and a greater role for state-run corporations.15

How much consensus or dissent might envelop the MPAIS caucus over the course of the assembly is an open question. Assembly president Alberto Acosta is regarded as an environmentalist who favors tight controls on future petroleum exploration while Correa has leaned toward maximizing oil revenues to support the government's development plans. Another potentially divisive issue is the debate over regional autonomy. The government's proposal creating new territorial divisions modeled after Chile's regions and making the cities of Guayaquil and Quito into separate districts is likely to galvanize local opposition and dismay assembly members who feel committed to the interests of the existing 24 provinces. Other hot-button issues will include debates on abortion and homosexual marriage. As a deeply religious Roman Catholic, Correa opposes both, putting him at odds with feminists and progressives in his own organization.

Undoubtedly, one of the biggest issues at stake in the assembly's deliberations is the powers of the presidency itself. Thus far, Correa and the MPAIS faithful have justified the nearly untrammelled use of executive power as crucial to breaking the logjam created by Ecuador's corrupt, discredited institutions and clearing the way for a new democratic institutionalization that will enhance transparency and citizen participation. But now that they have won the battle for a new constitution, is it reasonable to expect that Correa or his movement will have any real interest in placing effective restraints on executive powers and prerogatives, especially in light of the larger plan to restructure the economy and transform Ecuadorian society? And if there is little concern with the matter of restraining the executive, how can such a powerful, unchallenged presidency be reconciled with MPAIS's pledge to develop deliberative, empowering forms of grassroots democracy?

Correa derided the unlimited reelection recently championed by Chavez?and denied him by the voters of Venezuela?as "absurd." And yet the Ecuadorian president?who was elected under a constitution that barred the chief executive from reelection to consecutive terms? strongly backs the idea of allowing presidents to serve two consecutive terms.16 Alberto Acosta opposes this and favors instead a six-year presidential term, with an incumbent permitted to run again only after having rotated out of office for at least one term. One should note, however, that if Correa's first election, which took place under the 1998 Constitution, is discounted, then Acosta's proposal could pave the way for Correa to remain in power until 2015. Should MPAIS opt for presidential reelection with consecutive terms of five or more years, Correa's stay in office could last until at least 2019.

No matter how the question of presidential reelection is resolved, if key features of the plebiscitary presidency are left intact then democratic institutionalization is likely to suffer. Before the 2006 assembly elections, opposition candidates complained frequently about the "uneven playing field" that they faced, with the TSE mostly standing by while Correa spent government money on advertising and used public events for electioneering. With fresh votes to fill the presidency and a new-model legislature likely to take place in 2008, the problem of unfair campaign practices is bound to recur as Correa seeks his own reelection and an MPAIS majority in the new congress. Should Correa secure such a majority, it could be a springboard for additional constitutional changes, more referenda, and even more powers for the executive branch. Keeping in mind Ecuador's long history of constitutional makeovers and legal improvisation, analysts would be wise to regard the new constitution as a working draft, not an immutable text.

However Correa's hyperplebiscitary presidency evolves over the long term, it has already succeeded in profoundly altering the landscape of Ecuadorian politics. Speaking to the public's deep-seated desires for a dramatic break with traditional actors and past political practices, Cor-rea has championed a clean sweep of institutions. His goal of changing the "correlation of forces" has been realized through electoral victories that have humiliated parties such as the Christian Democratic Union, the Democratic Left, and the populist Roldosist Party. Once powerful, none of them has any significant national presence today. The poor performance by PRIAN, PSP, and PSC in the assembly elections has left them thoroughly sidelined as well. The traditional parties of the left, meanwhile, have found themselves completely eclipsed by MPAIS. Having swept away the past, MPAIS's leaders and followers must grapple with important questions about their movement's identity and future: Can it assume sufficient autonomy to become a democratic political party of the left or will it remain an electoral vehicle under Correa's personal control?

During his first year in office, Correa turned himself and his presidency into the political system's center of gravity. He is the leader and his is the office that define the country's agenda. Others can do little but follow or watch. The most telling measure of Correa's centrality to the political system is how much rides on his desires and his vision of the future. With no meaningful opposition from the parties or civil society, and with the president's own organization more an electoral movement than a governing party, Ecuador's political development seemingly hinges solely on Rafael Correa: his personality, his ambitions, and his decisions about what kind of "left turn" best suits the country. That one man's intentions weigh so heavily in determining the trajectory of change is a worrisome condition as Ecuadorians write their republic's twentieth constitution.

Footnote

NOTES

1. Although Correa's organization is still designated as MPAIS (List 35) in the official electoral registry, the name has undergone slight modifications over the course of elections. Alianza Pais (pais of course means "country" in Spanish) was the name used to denote the electoral coalition that backed Correa's run for the presidency in 2006, while Acuerdo Pais was the moniker favored in the 2007 constituent-assembly elections. Blue-and-green banners bearing the name "Acuerdo Pais" appear on the homepage of its website at www.acuerdopais.com. Correa's own political website can be found at www. rafaelcorrea.com.

2. See the essays collected under the title "A Left Turn in Latin America?" in the October 2006 issue of the Journal of Democracy.

3. These remarks of 14 July 2007 can be found on the presidency's official website at www.presidencia.gov.ee.

4. Theodore Lowi, The Personal Presidency: Power Invested, Promise Unfulfilled 60 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985). The plebiscitary nature of Latin American presidencies is also central to the notion of "delegative democracy" as originally described by Guillermo O'Donnell.

5. Arturo Valenzuela, "Latin American Presidencies Interrupted," Journal of Democracy 15 (October 2004): 5-19.

6. On the evolution of the party system, see Simon Pachano, La trama de Penelope: Procesos politicos e instituciones en el Ecuador (Quito: FLACSO-Sede Ecuador, 2007), 133-72.

7. For a discussion of instrumentalism as a pervasive problem in Latin American politics, see Leonardo Avritzer, Democracy and the Public Space in Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).

8. Mitchell Seligson, Democracy Audit: Ecuador 2006 (Quito: CEDATOS Editions, 2006), 67-69.

9. The demonstrators adopted the "outlaws" tag as a badge of honor after Gutierrez began calling them that. See Franklin Ramirez Gallegos, La insurreccion de abril nofue solo una fiesta (Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala, 2005).

10. Monte Reel, "In Ecuadoran Vote, Rhetoric Gives Way to Popular Pledges: Runoff Today Pits Banana Tycoon, Leftist," Washington Post, 26 November 2006. Available at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/ll/25/AR2006112500774.html.

11. On campaign strategy and tactics, see Catherine Conaghan and Carlos de la Torre, "The Permanent Campaign of Rafael Correa: Media and Politics in Ecuador," Paper prepared for the 27th International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Montreal, 5-8 September 2007.

12. "El Tribunal Constitucional restituye en sus cargos a 50 destituidos," Hoy (Quito), 24 April 2007.

13. Remarks by President Correa, 6 September 2007. Available at www.presidencia. gov.ec.

14. "Lo que mantiene la imagen del Presidente es su coherencia," El Universo (Guayaquil), 29 June 2007.

15. "Legal and Institutional Overhaul," Weekly Analysis of Ecuadorian Issues 43, 5 November 2007.

16. "Es absurda la reeleccion indefinida," El Universo (Guayaquil), 10 November 2007.