Ecuador
Constitutional Rule, 1948-60
Galo Plaza differed from previous Ecuadorian presidents. The son of
former President Plaza Gutiérrez, he had been born in the United
States, where he also attended several universities. His ties to the
United States grew even closer as a result of serving there as
ambassador under President Arroyo del Río. These links, as Pike
points out, "rendered him vulnerable to charges by Velasco Ibarra and
other demagogic opponents of being the lackey of U.S. imperialism."
Galo Plaza was not a professional politician, but a gentleman farmer
with a sizable cattle ranch near Quito, where he customarily spent
weekends throughout his four years as president.
Galo Plaza brought a developmentalist and technocratic emphasis to
Ecuadorian government. He invited a wide variety of foreign experts in
economic development and in governmental administration to recommend
and catalog reforms in both areas. In large part because of a lack of
political will within either the executive or the legislature, however,
virtually none of the recommended reforms was enacted. Nevertheless,
the economy experienced a marked improvement, with inflation finally
slowing down and both government budget and foreign currency accounts
balancing for the first time in many years. This achievement was even
more remarkable in light of the series of major earthquakes,
landslides, and floods suffered by Ecuador in 1949 and 1950.
No doubt Galo Plaza's most important contribution to Ecuadorian
political culture was his commitment to the principles and practices of
democracy. Galo Plaza endorsed such democratic guarantees as freedom of
the press and the freedom of opponents to voice their opinions, to
assemble for political purposes without fear of being jailed or worse,
and to be elected to the legislature without fear of being defrauded or
arbitrarily dismissed. Galo Plaza was able to create a mystique around
the idea of his completing his term in office, something no president
had accomplished since 1924, and this mystique no doubt helped him
achieve his goal.
As Galo Plaza readily admitted, however, his greatest asset, both
politically and economically, was the onset of the nation's banana
boom, as diseases plaguing plantations in Central America turned
Ecuador into an alternative supplier to the huge United States market.
Ecuador's banana exports grew from US$2 million to US$20 million
between 1948 and 1952. During these years, Ecuador also benefited from
sizable price increases--generated by the Korean War--for its commodity
exports.
A proof of the politically stabilizing effect of the banana boom of the
1950s is that even Velasco, who in 1952 was elected president for the
third time, managed to serve out a full four-year term. He continued to
spend as before--building bridges, roads, and schools at will and
rewarding his political supporters (including, this time, the military)
with jobs, salary increases, and weapons-- but, in contrast to his
previous times in office, there were now sufficient funds to pay for
everything.
Always the master populist, Velasco (who by now liked to be known as
"the National Personification") again came to power with the support of
the common man, this time through the vehicle of the Guayaquil-based
Concentration of Popular Forces (Concentración de Fuerzas
Populares--CFP). Once in office, however, he arrested and deported the
CFP boss, Carlos Guevara Moreno, together with several other party
leaders. Guevara Moreno reassumed control of the CFP in 1955 following
a three-year exile. Velasco's subsequent party support during the 1950s
came from the Conservatives, the conservative Social Christian Movement
(Movimiento Social Cristiano--MSC), and the highly nationalistic,
anticommunist, quasi-fascist Ecuadorian Nationalist Revolutionary
Action (Acción Revolucionaria Nacionalista Ecuatoriana--ARNE).
On repeated occasions, members of ARNE acted as thugs and shock troops,
attacking students, labor unions, and the press. In 1955 Velasco also
chose to pick a fight with the United States. In the opening round of
what would later become known as the "tuna war," Ecuadorian officials
seized two fishing boats carrying the United States flag, charging them
with fishing inside the 200-nauticalmile limit claimed by Ecuador as
territorial seas under its sovereignty