Ecuador: Two Years of Uncertainty

The ouster of Lucio Gutiérrez and the election of Rafael Correa were not just the political highlights of 2005 and 2006 in Ecuador, but also the main factors that triggered what has happened since then and probably the ones that will determine what occurs in the future. Although a President’s term in office coming to an abrupt end is no longer unusual in that Andean country, the way it happened this time and the events that led to it do oblige one to study it in detail. And while the election of an outsider is not news in Ecuador either, there are a series of factors that make this case special. So this, too, requires careful analysis. This paper examines the most important political events in Ecuador in the past two years –in light of the departure of Gutiérrez and the election of Rafael Correa– and gives some general explanations of them. On this basis the paper seeks to offer longer-term explanations of the causes of the constant instability in Ecuadorean politics