Weekly Report - 29 July 2003

INDIGENOUS ORGANISATIONS WARN OF IMPENDING UPRISING 

President Lucio Gutiérrez appears to have decided to test a thesis that has begun to make the rounds in Ecuadorean political circles: that his indigenous allies of the Pachakutik movement (PK), or at least its leaders who have landed top government positions, are too enamoured of their quota of power to make good on their threat to withdraw from the coalition. 

On 21 July he demanded the resignation of education minister Rosa Marí­a Torres, of PK, for violating his gag order and arguing in the press that Gutiérrez lacked the powers to dismiss PK ministers. [Sociedad Patriótica (PSP), the President's own party, had been demanding Torres's resignation since February, shortly after her appointment.] 

She went, and her resignation was followed by that of 24 PK officials she had appointed. 

PSP rubs it in. This was followed by a barrage of statements by Gilmar Gutiérrez, the PSP bloc's leader in congress. He proclaimed that there had never been a formal agreement on policies with the PK (untrue: within hours the press was publishing extracts from two separate agreements, in writing, and signed by Lucio Gutiérrez, dating back to October and December last year). 

Then he went on to say that the majority of PK members had no quarrels with the President or his party. 'Regrettably,' he said, in a rather crude attempt to introduce an ethnic element to the disagreements within the coalition, 'there are five or six PK members who have split the alliance, and these are the mestizos [half-breeds].' 

His final contribution was to propose a merger of the PSP and the PK as a means of overcoming the present difficulties. 

Threat of 'uprising'. The idea of a merger was flatly rejected by the PK leadership, which was also fuming because, they said, President Gutiérrez had reneged on a commitment to take no action against PK officials without first talking to PK national coordinator Miguel Lluco. 

The umbrella indigenous body, Conaie, abruptly cancelled a meeting to discuss policy with the President (though representatives of Confeniae, a member confederation, did attend). 

Leaders of Conaie and the Confederación del Seguro Campesino (CSC) -another component of the indigenous conglomerate- have even begun to threaten with a levantamiento (literally, 'uprising', though in practice this means mass protests, usually accompanied by the blockading of highways). 

Conaie president Leonidas Iza made this sound like a certainty when he said, 'We won't say when or where it will begin -but that we'll act, we certainly will.' 

The PK in power. It is arguable that without the support of the PK, Gutiérrez would not have won the presidency. Apart from its representation in the coalition government, the PK, though only a contender for the past eight years, is clearly an electoral force in its own right. It has 11 seats (11% of the total) in the single-chamber congress. Across the country it holds 28 mayoralties and (either singly or in alliance with others) five provincial prefectures (governorships). 

With Torres's departure, the PK has four cabinet posts left: foreign affairs (Nina Pacari), agriculture (Luis Macas), planning & social dialogue (Augusto Barrera) and tourism (Doris Solí­s). 

Also prominent in government is Wilma Salgado, head of the AGD, the bank deposit guarantee agency, who is credited across the board with having done an excellent job chasing down debtors of the banking system. 

Political analyst Patricia de la Torre, of Quito's Catholic university, is one of those who say that the PK leaders are desperately hanging on to their quota of power, at the risk of losing their reputation for putting dignity and principles first -as well as probably having to pull out regardless.