Ecuador's president
Correa and the golden ponchos
A popular leader faces mounting opposition on both left and right
The AmericasOct 3rd 2009 edition
Cutting Correa down to size, in Quichua
WHEN he is addressing rural audiences in the Andean highlands, Rafael Correa, Ecuador's president, likes to sprinkle his speeches with phrases in Quichua, the main indigenous language, which he picked up during a year of volunteer work. But these are not always appreciated. In 2005 when he was seeking allies for his presidential bid and spoke thus to the congress of Pachakutik, an indigenous party, one of its leaders, Auki Tituaña, responded in English.
After almost three years in office, Mr Correa's relations with Ecuador's indigenous leaders are worse still. A socialist who likes to wear Andean Indian waistcoats and who recently announced the setting up of Cuban-style "Committees for the Defence of the Revolution", Mr Correa has long been distrusted by business groups and conservatives. But now he faces a new challenge from the left. A strike by teachers and students, whose leaders claim to be Maoists, is now in its third week. And indigenous groups, some linked to Pachakutik, this week launched what they called a "national uprising", complete with roadblocks. At least one protester was killed in clashes with police.
The immediate trigger for this protest is a bill governing the use of water, a crucial issue for many subsistence farmers, especially in the Andes. The government wants a new, centrally managed authority to allocate water. This would doubtless be able to impose technically efficient policies. But protesters fear the authority would siphon off water for mining, rather than farming. They say today's system, under which some 10,000 local committees manage water supplies, has worked well. They fear the new one will open the door to privatisation, which the government denies.
The protests lack the strength of a past effort in 2000, which toppled a president. Mr Correa called them "a total failure", having earlier dismissed their organisers as "golden ponchos" flush with state funds for community development. But they are a warning to the president that he cannot take the highlands for granted. The government considered them serious enough to send out half the police force to keep the peace. It is hampered by a tight limit imposed by the new constitution engineered by Mr Correa and promulgated last October, which imposed a 12-month deadline for approving new regulatory measures.
Mr Correa has hitherto managed to avoid the constant protests and public-sector strikes that beset his predecessors. That is partly because he inspired widespread support by attacking the vested interests and corruption that turned Ecuador into one of the worst-governed and most unstable countries in the Americas. And it is partly because he spent much of the windfall from record oil prices on raising public-sector salaries and the minimum wage.
But with oil revenues lower, the government may soon have to curb its spending. It has already defaulted on two sets of bonds (though it then bought most of them back at knock-down prices). Meanwhile, some of Mr Correa's more laudable attempts to assert the national interest face resistance—as with the teachers, who oppose stricter evaluation.
The president veers between social democracy and a more autocratic, radical brand of leftism. He is mercurial and abrasive. On crutches after a knee operation in Cuba, he was recently filmed insulting a protesting teacher. According to opinion polls, his approval rating is still over 40%. But it is falling. He is starting to lose the backing of the middle class in Quito, the capital, his core supporters. Mr Correa has ridden higher for longer in public esteem than his predecessors. Now he is coming down to earth.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline "Correa and the golden ponchos"