List of Presidents of Ecuador
… After the 1938 coup, Ecuador would be dominated by the Conservative Party from 1939 to 1984, ending the Radical Liberal oligarchy’s domination, and moreover by the “perfect dictatorship” of José Maria Velasco Ibarra, who held the presidency four times, for a total of twenty years, from 1939 to 1974, being replaced between each mandate by a political crony and dying shortly before trying to win the presidency a fifth time in 1979. During the Velasco Ibarra era, Ecuador experienced a long period of stability, countering marxist influence with proto-populist and conservative policies, strengthening the links with the United States, while experiecing an economic boom thanks to the exploitation of oil.
The alternance happened in 1984, with the victory of Jaime Roldos Aguilera for the neo-pyrist Concentration of People’s Forces. Inheriting the integralist and religious streak of the Conservative Party, Roldos also relied heavily on the people, redistributing the wealth of the oil economy and announcing a large agrarian reform, while exhalting the “purity of the Ecuadorian Race”. Nevertheless, the effect of the 1987 Latin American crisis hit deeply Ecuador, and the announcement of a corporatist remodeling of the economy in 1987 only lead to a military coup in Christmas 1987 led by socialist-leaning General, Frank “El Loco” Vargas. Vargas would later claim victory in the 1989 presidential election, effectively enacting corporatism as Ecuador’s economic policy, that would only result in a Social Christian victory in 1994 (the heir to the Conservative Party), more chaos with a new krach for the Ecuadorian sucre in 1997 and a new military coup in 1998. Roldos came back to victory in 1999, reforming the country, getting re-elected to an unpredecented second consecutive term in 2004 after having a new Constitution adopted, before killing himself in the face of a military coup in 2005. His successor, Vice President Rafael Correa, was overthrown in a coup in 2008. In 2014, the candidate for the Concentration, Adbala “El Loco” Bucaram, the former Mayor of Guayaquil, won the presidency, and has since been re-elected in 2019 ; although world-renowned for his eccentric behaviour (offering US President Brownback a remix of his best songs during an official summit), Bucaram has yet to cure the heavily damanged Ecuadorian economy, heavily suffering from a poor management of oil revenues and widespread corruption.
Last edited:
