Andean Group - June 2013 (ISSN 1741-4466)

In the end it took less than four hours to accomplish what four years had failed to deliver for Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa: two laws regulating mining and the media. This was the end Correa had in sight when he took time out as president to campaign tirelessly at the turn of the year to ensure a legislative majority for what he insists will be his final four-year term in power. Correa’s ruling Alianza País (AP) used its decisive majority in the national assembly in mid-June to approve the two, highly contentious, laws one month after Correa began his new term.

Correa has made attracting foreign investment to the mining sector the cornerstone of his economic policy, not just to reduce Ecuador’s dependence on its rapidly depleting oil supply, but also to drive the socio-economic development agenda at the heart of his citizens’ revolution. Regulating the media, which Correa has stigmatised as his biggest “political” rival, “enemy number one” and “contract killers in ink” was a key objective of his last term but foundered on the AP’s lack of a legislative majority. That is no longer the case: the AP now controls 100 of 137 seats in the national assembly. It was noteworthy that while the mining reform attracted a handful of opposition voters, the media law passed with the backing of just the 100 AP deputies. There was no debate because the AP argued that this had all taken place during the previous (hung) parliament.

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