Former president of Ecuador reflects
on democracy and globalization

Candice Jones
Contributing Writer

Jamil Mahuad, president of Ecuador from August 1998 to January 2000, gave a compelling lecture Monday night about the issue of democracy in an era of globalization.

In 2000 a coup ended his political career and Mahuad turned to the world of academia instead of exile, following his ousting.

He spoke of his own Jesuit education in Ecuador and asked the crowd questions which had no easy answers.

Mahuad explained the situation of presidents in Latin America: six leaders have been prematurely ousted from office in as many years, including the democratic heads of state in Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela.

He commented on the number of coups, saying, "if you were a doctor, you would call that an epidemic."

Though various reasons were given for the struggling government leadership, Mahuad assured the crowd there was no clear answer.

He explained that what he had observed was a pattern of events.

"A president is selected and the population puts a lot of hope in them. Then they become disenchanted, and the people feel betrayed."

In the lecture, Mahuad explained the lack of options for leaders to make change in their countries.

He explained two options: "choose between external debt and social debt."

Meaning, raise taxes, raise prices of utilities and services, and cut subsidies, or do the opposite.

Mahuad made the transition from looking at politics from a law perspective to regarding it in a sociological perspective.

There is a cycle that exists in Latin American politics: people give power to authority, and in turn the authority provides services to the people.

What tends to happen, as Mahuad explained, is that attempting to fix the economy by balancing the budget and paying external debt tends to hurt the people more.

He explained that in 1998 the external debt of Ecuador was 120 percent of the nation’s GDP.

If Ecuador had decided to pay nothing to social and civil services, all production in Ecuador for the entire year would not have been enough to pay off the external debt.

Mahuad stated that third world countries "become pariahs in the international market," making them unable to compete in capitalist system, or sustain themselves without accruing international debt.

As the population goes up, the poverty also increases, as the GDP steadily remains at its current rate.

The international frames for debt relief (such as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund) give no room for change.

"They tell you that you are not growing because you are not doing the right things," said Mahuad.

"They give you 120 conditions to follow, and you sign the paper and you are always in debt."

When asked why the ousting of presidents and changing of leaders doesn’t change the overall situation, he gave the analogy that even in a human body, when a grave terminal condition already exists, switching doctors multiple times will not cure the disease.

The most troubling of his words was a statement about cyclical and patterned poverty: "what we have been living in [in Latin America] is not an isolated case, it is a pattern."

He explained the frustrating images conveyed to Latin America from developed countries that fail to understand their cultural reality: images of what Latin Americans could become penetrate the media, merchandise, music, etc.

"They say the sky is the limit, and ‘just do it,’ and that is not reality for Latin America. We need to figure out how we would like our future in our own terms," said Mahuad.

The former president spoke candidly about problems within his own country, helpful in an age where government cover-ups and propaganda are commonplace for Latin America.

His method of answering questions with more questions was instructive.

There are no easy answers to the big questions of globalization, poverty, systemic economic problems, and democratization.