[DRAFT COPY: NOT TO BE CITED WITHOUT AUTHORS ' PERMISSION] Prepared for Delivery at the XXI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association

The contemporary indigenous movement in Ecuador, especially since the creation of the pan-Ecuadorian Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE) in 1986, pursued a political strategy of popular mobilization and direct negotiations with government leaders to achieve its goals. The mobilization strategy included tactics such as uprisings, takeovers of government buildings, cross-country marches and blockages of major commercial highways. CONAIE explicitly shunned electoral politics until a dramatic shift in 1995 which included the CONAIE-initiated creation of the Pachakutik/Nuevo País political movement. This paper describes and critically analyzes the successes and failures of this electoral strategy by examining the 1996 and 1998 elections as well as the politics surrounding the deliberations of the National Constituent Assembly which was charged with wholesale revision of the country's political constitution before the 1998 elections. The authors point out the promises and pitfalls of such an electoral strategy, concluding that such an approach does not inexorably advance the goals of the indigenous movement