Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Judi Lynn

(160,211 posts)
Fri Jun 5, 2015, 05:34 PM Jun 2015

Why Ecuador’s Rafael Correa Is One of Latin America’s Most Popular Leaders

Why Ecuador’s Rafael Correa Is One of Latin America’s Most Popular Leaders

He played hardball with foreign creditors and stood up to Big Oil, using increased earnings to transform education and health.

James North June 4, 2015



Ecuador's President Rafael Correa (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Rafael Correa is often wrongly paired with Hugo Chávez, the late Venezuelan president, as an outspoken Latin American populist. In fact, the differences between the two men are significant. Chávez was a career army colonel; Correa is an accomplished economics professor, with a PhD from the University of Illinois. Chávez first won attention with a failed coup attempt in 1992; Correa stepped into Ecuador’s spotlight in 2005 as a bold finance minister who stood up to international banks. Even Chávez’s partisans admit that his presidency was marred by economic mismanagement; even Correa’s opponents can find little to criticize about Ecuador’s stable and growing economy. These differences partly explain why Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, is stumbling badly in Venezuela, while Correa continues to enjoy nationwide approval ratings of more than 60 percent.

Correa, 52, was raised in modest circumstances in the tropical port city of Guayaquil. Strongly influenced by the Catholic Church’s Liberation Theology, Correa interrupted his studies to volunteer for a year in a poor indigenous community in the Andean highlands, where he taught school and promoted micro-enterprises. In our recent interview in Quito, he told me simply, “I think all Christians should do this.” There he learned how to speak some Kichwa, the language of as many as 35 percent of Ecuadoreans, who include many of the poorest.

Correa was a charismatic student leader, and the traditional politicians tried to recruit him. “I realized that I wasn’t ready,” he told me. “I needed to learn something first.” An aptitude test in high school had suggested that he study economics. “I was good at both social sciences and mathematics,” he said, laughing. “I didn’t know what economics was. But I decided to try it.”

After attending universities in Belgium and then the United States, he returned to teach in Ecuador, a nation then shaken by chronic economic and political crisis. The country had seven different presidents in only ten years. Correa had been quietly advising one of them when he was picked to be finance minister. He ran for president himself in 2006, and he has been re-elected comfortably twice since then. “I got here by chance, by accident,” he said, gesturing around his office in the 200-year-old presidential palace.

More:
http://www.thenation.com/article/209129/why-ecuadors-rafael-correa-one-latin-americas-most-popular-leaders

Latest Discussions»Region Forums»Latin America»Why Ecuador’s Rafael Corr...