Ecuadorian President Gains New Mandate

Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado is the President of the Republic of Ecuador who was elected in late 2006 and took office in January 2007

. He has been one of the most controversial as well as most Ecuador centric president the country has known.

In December of 2008, he declared Ecuador's national debt as illegitimate claiming that they were obtained by despotic regimes. He then fought the international creditors in court and was able to successfully lower the price of the debt letters to be able to continue the payment of all its debt.

During his term, he was able to rewrite the constitution where his first mandate is set to end in 2011 but with a new mandate, his new term would end by 2013. In the new set-up of the elections, he was able obtain 51.9% of the votes counted in the referendum. This new mandate could be extended until 2017. This new term of office is well worth it, as the Correa government has been able to reduce poverty, indigence and employment for the first time in Ecuadorian history.

While Correa has made government work for Ecuador, his government's relationship with the media has been between skittish to hawkish. He has filed multiple court actions against journalists and media companies and has even gone to the extent of expropriating private media outlets as government owned media outlets. This has lead to criticism that Correa's government has been launching an all out campaign to muzzle the media and curtail its independence.

Correa was born of a working class family in Guavaquil. His first job was a teacher in Cotopaxi Province, an area of extreme poverty and hardship. Following obtaining his Masters degree in Economics from Universite Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, he had further studies in Masters of Science in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He obtained his Doctoral degree later on with a dissertation about structural reform in Latin America, his blueprint for his office later on in life.

His first government job was as Minister of Finance and Economy under then President Alfredo Palacio. While in that office, he moved for poverty reduction and economic sovereignty and opposed the proposed free-trade deal with the United States and the IMF policies towards Latin American economies. He later resigned after a falling out with the President but left office with the highest approval rating of any official in government.

Now, he has the mandate of the Ecuadorian people. His vision and his policies are truly pro-Ecuador but how long will the honeymoon last.

by: Bobby Castro

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