Latin America looks to Ecuador | Opinion

The first decade of the 21st century was marked by anti-neoliberal governments in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia and Ecuador. The only governments in the world that have implemented anti-neoliberal agendas, reducing inequalities on the world’s most unequal continent.

Throughout the second decade, the right managed to regain its strength, take over the governments in Argentina – by elections -, in Brazil and Bolivia – by coups d’état – and in Ecuador, by the accession of the elected president, Lenin Moreno, with an anti-neoliberal program, to neoliberalism.

Moreno failed, like all Latin American leaders who have tried to implement this model.

Neoliberalism has revealed that it is courteous, because it responds to the interests of finance capital, it has no social policies and therefore fails to conquer the bases of social support that allow it to stabilize its governments. The case of Argentina was exemplary, with a euphoric victory of Mauricio Macri, He quickly exhausted himself, because his government took over the same neoliberal model that had already failed not only in Argentina, but also in Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia and Ecuador. The recent right-wing victory in Uruguay promises a similar fate.

The third decade was marked by a second cycle of anti-neoliberal governments in the region, with the victories of Alberto Fernandez in Argentina, Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, by Luis Arce in Bolivia. Victories with great electoral support, because they are based on social policies, on anti-neoliberal economic policies, on the resumption of Latin American integration processes.

The eyes of the continent are now on Ecuador, where a president elected for the continuity of the anti-neoliberal government of Rafael Correa – the most important government in the history of Ecuador – betrayed him and did exactly what the right proposed, continuing to rule with the right, taking up the neoliberal model. He failed, as he would have failed Guillermo Lasso, if I had won.

The first round of the presidential election confirmed the favoritism of Andrés Arauz, candidate supported by Rafael Correa; second place went to Guillermo Lasso, one of the country’s biggest bankers already defeated in previous elections. Yaku perez, movement Pachakutik, came in third place.

The dispute is closed between the former. Yaku maintains a critical stance on both. Lasso defends, as always, an orthodox version of the neoliberal model. It renounces everything that has been achieved by the Rafael Correa government, it proposes privatizations, a minimal state, the centrality of the market. He intends to return to the pre-Correa governments, which only increased the then permanent crisis in Ecuador.

Andrés Arauz collects the positive experiences of the Rafael Correa government and presents himself as the Ecuadorian expression like other anti-neoliberal governments, such as those of Lula, Néstor and Cristina Kirchner, Pepe Mujica, Evo Morales, López Obrador and Rafael Correa him- even. If Arauz is successful, the second cycle of progressive, anti-neoliberal governments is consolidated, adding Ecuador to the current governments of Argentina, Mexico, and Bolivia. If Lasso wins, Ecuador is isolated again, giving continuity to the disastrous government of Lenin Moreno.

For this reason, the eyes and heart of Latin America are turned to Ecuador.