SUMMARY
Ecuador was under Spanish rule from the defeat of the Inca Empire by the conquistadors in the 16th century until 1821. In that year, Ecuador declared independence, and joined the union called the Republic of Gran Colombia, together with Colombia, Venezuela and Panama. The union struggled with rivalries and dissolved in 1830. On 13 May 1830 the Government of Ecuador was first established when the country became an independent presidential republic with Juan José Flores, a general from Ecuador’s war of independence, as its first president.
Another military strongman, Vicente Rocafuerte, continuously challenged Flores for power. The two agreed to alternate the presidency, with Rocafuerte taking over power between 1834 and 1839, and Flores returning to the presidency between 1839 and 1845. Following this, the political life of the country continued to be characterized by rivalries, turmoil and swift changes of governmental control.
In 1861, Gabriel García Moreno was elected president. He was strictly conservative and introduced an autocratic rule in Ecuador, which gave the Roman Catholic Church large influence in state affairs. Moreno founded the Conservative Party (PC), which came to dominate politics for the remainder of the 19th century. By the end of the 19th century, a liberal wave swept over Ecuador and in 1895, liberal leader Eloy Alfaro of the Radical Liberal Party (PLR), managed to overthrow the conservative government. A period of economic crisis accompanied the PLR’s years in governmental power, and hence, the military ousted the sitting president, Gonzalo Córdova, and took over the government between 1925 and 1926. The PC and the PLR continued to dominate the political arena of Ecuador in the following decades, with a brief interlude of the leftist Socialist Party in the mid-1930s.
José María Velasco Ibarra could arguably be the most well-known Ecuadorian politician. He represented the Conservative Party initially, but later came to head a multiparty coalition called the Velaquista National Federation. He has been elected president five times, but only managed to hold on to the presidency for the full four-year term once, which was on his third time between 1952 and 1956. He was deposed by the military on two occasions, in 1935 and 1972.
In addition to the armed forces having deposed a number of elected presidents, Ecuador have had several periods of military rule. The military forces in Ecuador, the Fuerzas Armadas del Ecuador, has its roots in the 1800’s and the country’s independence. As of 2018, Ecuador had just over 40 000 troops in its armed forces, which included army, navy and air services. In 1963, the armed forces ousted President Arosemena Monroy and established a military junta, under the leadership of Admiral Ramón Castro Jijón. The junta ruled Ecuador until 1966 when general elections was held. The longest period of military rule started with the earlier mentioned ousting of President Velasco Ibarra in 1972. He was replaced by General Guillermo Rodríguez Lara, who instated a military dictatorship in the country. Nevertheless, public and military disgruntlement with Rodríguez led to him being deposed in 1976, and a council of generals from the different wings of the armed forces seized control. Indigenous rights and representation suffered during the years of military rule. The indigenous population in Ecuador made up around 6% of Ecuador’s populace in 2019 and consisted of 14 different indigenous nationalities. These groups have historically lacked representation in the governing bodies; despite improvements in recent time, the indigenous nationalities still have little influence when it comes to key issues concerning their resources and land areas.
Civilian rule in Ecuador was reinstated in 1979 after the election of center-left Jaime Roldós Aguilera. During the following decades Ecuador’s economy declined, its dependency on oil revenues made the country vulnerable to fluctuations in the oil price. Furthermore, the longstanding border dispute with neighboring Peru escalated into a violent conflict in 1995, which added to Ecuador’s dire economic and political situation. The Ecuadorian presidents struggled to turn these developments around, but none was able to stay in office longer than one term. Hence, a large number of different political parties replaced each other in holding governmental power, including social democrats, populists, Christian democrats and centrist liberals.
President Jamil Mahuad from the Christian democratic Popular Democracy party was deposed in a nonviolent coup in 2000, after trying to adopt the U.S dollar as currency in an effort to mitigate Ecuador’s ongoing economic crisis. Coup leader Col. Lucio Gutiérrez, representing the Patriotic Society Party, managed to take office after the following presidential elections in 2003. When independent leftist, Rafael Correa, later part of the social democratic PAIS Alliance, came to power in 2007, he increased the state’s control over Ecuador’s oil resources, which brought some stability to the economy. He allied himself with President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, increased the powers of the presidential office and managed to hold on to power for ten years. In 2017, Correa gave his support to his vice president Lenín Moreno in the presidential elections. Despite accusations of election fraud from the opposition, Moreno was declared winner. During his time in office, Moreno reversed some of Correa’s policies; limiting the number of terms a president could hold office, thus constitutionally excluding Correa from attempting to return to the presidency. In 2021 Guillermo Lasso was elected president, the first conservative president in nearly two decades.
