The three presidential terms of Rafael Correa, under which the Ecuadorian President pursued a policy he called “socialism of the 21st century,” saw an overall improvement in the economy, with poverty and inequality falling, and a higher rate of economic growth than in the preceding decade. But U.S. agencies including USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy began building up an opposition to policies of progress and infrastructure, by developing a political network centered on environmentalism, indigenous groups, and identity politics. These networks succeeded in April 2021, with the election of banker Guillermo Lasso, writes Ben Norton at The Grayzone.
Washington-backed environmentalist groups were used to stymie Correa’s infrastructure programs, by promoting large, and often violent, campaigns against them. Correa was tarred as an “extractivist” for his promotion of mining. Similarly, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s infrastructure proposals in Mexico, such as the Maya Train, are targetted by environmentalist and indigenous NGOs that often receive U.S. funding.
Norton identifies three broad political tracks in Ecuador: progressive politics (Correismo); banker/old-money politics (Lasso); and environmentalist/identity politics, used to destroy the progressive movement by supposedly pushing it from “the left.”
In the presidential election, Andres Arauz represented Correismo, Guillermo Lasso represented anti-Correismo, and spoiler candidate Yaku Perez ran on the political arm of the nation’s largest indigenous alliance. When Perez was eliminated in the first round of voting, he called for his supporters to vote null on the second round, leading to over a million null votes, in an election won by Lasso with some 400,000 votes more than Arauz. “While Perez ran on clearly right-wing policies, his campaign weaponized themes of identity, environmentalism, and gender and sexuality to attack the leftist Correista movement,” explains Norton.
