Regarding the elections of the Pachakutik Plurinational Unity Movement
Pablo Dávalos1
At the end of April 2023, the Pachakutik Plurinational Unity Movement (MUPP), in accordance with the country's legislation requiring political parties and movements to incorporate internal democratic mechanisms through primaries and democratic elections for their authorities, held its internal elections to define its new National Coordinator and its new leadership. This leadership, unprecedented in the country, was composed of more than forty leaders with gender and age parity, and with national and international representation (including migrants). This event by a movement within the political system generated national interest and became one of the most significant events in Ecuador's current situation due to its far-reaching consequences.
As background, it should be noted that the MUPP entered the political system in 1996 as part of the political project of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), at the time the most powerful and important social organization in the country. For this reason, CONAIE always considered the MUPP its political arm. However, since its founding, the MUPP has become a political arm that has always sought to act autonomously and independently from CONAIE. This is why conflicts and contradictions between the MUPP and CONAIE have been recurrent throughout its history.
An example of this is the alliance that the MUPP formed in 2002 with Colonel Lucio Gutiérrez of the Patriotic Society party to support his presidential candidacy, behind the back and without the authorization of CONAIE. On that occasion, Lucio Gutiérrez won the presidential election, but implemented one of the most radical neoliberal programs, forcing the indigenous organization into a more belligerent opposition stance while, paradoxically, some of its members were in the government.
That is why, when a new electoral alliance was proposed in 2006, this time with a political outsider like Rafael Correa, CONAIE decided to participate based on its own resources, forcing the MUPP to withdraw and not support Correa's candidacy. But the 2006 elections were pivotal for the country because they ushered in a political cycle that would last for a decade, until 2017. During this period, the MUPP became a marginal option given the political hegemony of the Citizen Revolution, as the political expression of this new cycle would come to be known. This movement consistently viewed the indigenous movement as an adversary that had to be co-opted or, failing that, destroyed.
As a marginal option of the political system, the MUPP was, on the other hand, able to become an important option for decentralized autonomous governments and managed to capture important territorial representations during this period.
However, what truly altered the country's political landscape was the political shift undertaken in 2018 by former President Lenin Moreno, who broke ties with the political movement that brought him to power—the Citizens' Revolution—and inexplicably transformed himself into its most radical adversary. This shift changed the coordinates of political hegemony and the contestation of power.
In this shift, the right wing initially positioned itself through two significant expressions: on the one hand, the right wing of the Social Christian Party, with a strong electoral base on the coast; and on the other, the right wing of the remnants of the political system, formerly represented by the now-defunct Popular Democracy party, whose electoral base was located in the highlands. This right wing converged into the CREO movement (Creating Opportunities). The leaders of both parties, Jaime Nebot (Social Christian Party) and Guillermo Lasso (CREO), respectively, endorsed, supported, encouraged, and promoted Lenin Moreno's political shift because they considered themselves the legitimate heirs of the political and hegemonic transition.
To guarantee this political shift, former President Lenin Moreno altered all the coordinates of economic and public policy, prompting the return of IMF-imposed adjustment and fiscal austerity programs. This is why, in March 2019, he signed a program with the IMF, allowing its return after more than fourteen years during which the country had distanced itself from this multilateral institution. The IMF, on this occasion, came with full force. It defined what is perhaps the most aggressive and radical fiscal austerity and structural reform program it has ever imposed on any country in Latin America, and even on some in Africa.
The IMF wants to change everything in Ecuador, and it wants to do so radically. It's not content with intervening and changing fiscal policy; it wants to alter all the institutional frameworks that underpin all public policies. That's why its fiscal consolidation and structural reform program, signed with Lenin Moreno, disrupts the entire economy and subjects the country to the rigors of austerity, in a context where there was no reason to do so, since all fiscal accounts were in order and the country was experiencing economic growth and low inflation.
This austerity program faced its ultimate test in October 2019, when the country's largest social mobilization took place, forcing Lenin Moreno to backtrack on the economic program imposed by the IMF. This mobilization was led by CONAIE, and it was precisely within this movement that the figure of the indigenous leader Leonidas Iza emerged.
In December 2019, following these mobilizations, the National Assembly decided to shelve a series of legal reforms that had been submitted as urgent economic measures by Lenin Moreno, effectively dismantling the entire structural reform program designed by the IMF for Ecuador. Faced with this situation, the IMF itself decided to terminate the fiscal consolidation and structural reform program under the pretext that the information it had received from the country was “erroneous.”
However, this defeat of the IMF and the fiscal consolidation program translated into massive social and electoral support for the Indigenous movement due to its leadership and commitment. In this way, the MUPP became the second most voted political movement in the country. From a marginal actor in politics, it transformed into its most important player. But this transition for the MUPP occurred in a context where the movement was not prepared to take on such a challenge.
Indeed, unlike other political parties and movements, the MUPP is the only movement within the political system that is the expression of a social structure, namely, CONAIE. All other political parties and movements have their adherents, their structure, their dynamics, but none of them have a social base; they may have, and in fact do have, electoral bases, but they lack a social base. The MUPP is the only one with a social base, but it is a social base that finds its reference and context in the country's community fabric.
This raises a series of irresolvable problems within the liberal political framework, which manifest as political aporias; one of these is how to reconcile the liberal political framework with a political organization that operates outside of it. This is precisely what is happening in the relationship between CONAIE and MUPP.
To give an idea of this complexity, which leads to an aporia: the Code of Democracy, the legal framework that governs and regulates representation and elections, is based on a political ontology and epistemology rooted in liberalism, which recognizes only individuals as the subjects of representation and election. According to the Code of Democracy, there is no political subject other than the citizen, who is the only one with the right to elect and be elected. However, in the case of CONAIE, there is a complexity that can only be understood in light of what they have always demanded and which has become the compass of their political project: the plurinationality of the State, that is, the recognition of a political ontology of radical differences.
To give an idea of this complexity, which leads to an aporia: the Code of Democracy, the legal framework that governs and regulates representation and elections, is based on a political ontology and epistemology rooted in liberalism, which recognizes only individuals as the subjects of representation and election. According to the Code of Democracy, there is no political subject other than the citizen, who is the only one with the right to elect and be elected. However, in the case of CONAIE, there is a complexity that can only be understood in light of what they have always demanded and which has become the compass of their political project: the plurinationality of the State, that is, the recognition of a political ontology of radical differences.
To give an idea of this complexity, which leads to an aporia: the Code of Democracy, the legal framework that governs and regulates representation and elections, is based on a political ontology and epistemology rooted in liberalism, which recognizes only individuals as the subjects of representation and election. According to the Code of Democracy, there is no political subject other than the citizen, who is the only one with the right to elect and be elected. However, in the case of CONAIE, there is a complexity that can only be understood in light of what they have always demanded and which has become the compass of their political project: the plurinationality of the State, that is, the recognition of a political ontology of radical differences.
In essence, it is the logic of the market and the supposed rational choice of the consumer that is transferred as an epistemological framework to political representation and elections. But this significantly fragments the relationship between CONAIE and the MUPP. CONAIE cannot exercise community control over the MUPP because the law does not allow it. It may have certain margins of action, but it cannot exceed them. Thanks to the law, the MUPP can become an electoral machine without any possibility of community control. The MUPP can make decisions based on individualistic and opportunistic logic without the community being able to do anything to change or oversee them.
Having lost the possibility of community control, the MUPP abandons its historical project and becomes a machine of representation and election in which its weaknesses take their toll. Indeed, those who assume representation in the MUPP come from community networks or have support or connections with these networks. In some cases, they are leaders or figures who have supported the social struggles of the Indigenous movement or who can better circumvent the racism that exists in the country, and for this reason, they have been included on the MUPP's electoral lists.
These individuals, upon entering the political system, if they lack community support, treat their presence as a personal gamble. Their political ties and commitments are weak because the MUPP is not an ideological party like other options within the political system, but rather the political expression of a social organization. The underlying ideological and emancipatory horizon resides within the political organization itself, not within the MUPP, which is merely its instrument.
This situation may go unnoticed or, in any case, not imply serious problems for the social structure when the MUPP's representation in the political system is marginal, but it becomes a real problem when that representation is majority and strategic, as happened in the 2021 elections. In those elections, the MUPP reached nearly 20% of parliamentary representation, making it the second largest legislative minority, and thanks to that, it was able to capture the Presidency of the National Assembly.
However, what could have become an electoral success that would catapult the MUPP to stellar positions in politics and allow it to solve the problems of the hegemonic transition and carry out the historical project of the indigenous movement to build the first Plurinational State in the history of the country, on this occasion, became, for its social structure, that is, the CONAIE, a real nightmare.
Without any possibility of community or social control, the MUPP became lost in the labyrinth of its own simulations and opportunism, squandering a true historical opportunity. Its members within the political system became caricatures of that system's worst vices. None of them projected themselves with the national leadership that could make them a point of reference. None of them built bridges with their social networks. They transformed into bureaucrats of the political system, lacking a coherent vision for the country and unable to articulate and unify their practices within the political system with the horizon of social emancipation proposed by CONAIE.
In a kind of naive narcissism, they believed they had entered the political system on their own merits and severed all ties with its social structure, dedicating themselves to using the resources the political system placed at their disposal to promote themselves. This is why the MUPP's journey through the corridors of the political system is erratic, unpredictable, ambiguous, and fraught with contradictions—not only political but also ethical.
In a kind of naive narcissism, they believed they had entered the political system on their own merits and severed all ties with its social structure, dedicating themselves to using the resources the political system placed at their disposal to promote themselves. This is why the MUPP's journey through the corridors of the political system is erratic, unpredictable, ambiguous, and fraught with contradictions—not only political but also ethical.
But the country is living through its most dramatic hours, in which the bourgeoisie has chosen to lead it toward the status of a failed state, where the gaps in social contracting caused by the radical nature of neoliberal adjustment are directly filled by organized crime and mafia violence. Perhaps in other circumstances, this erratic behavior of the MUPP legislators might even have been understandable, but in this context of crisis, when it was essential to restore the country's lost social contracting, the MUPP had become a real problem for social organizations, and it was unforgivable that its missteps and digressions did not contribute to solving the country's serious problems, despite having important political tools at its disposal.
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This is why recovering its political expression has become a priority for CONAIE; because those who pay the MUPP's debts are not its representatives in the political system, who will ultimately return to the shadows from which they came, but rather the social organization itself. It is impossible to fight neoliberalism, the IMF, and the bourgeoisie with such a heavy burden as the MUPP. For CONAIE, this was particularly evident during the mobilizations of June 2022, when it had to suspend its own representation in the political system to have a greater capacity to respond and more social legitimacy.
That is what was and is at stake in the MUPP elections: the possibility that the social organization (CONAIE) can exercise community control over its political structure, because it is the only way to resolve the complex political scenarios that the country is experiencing.
Thanks to this community oversight, for example, it's possible to control parliamentary representation so that it takes a firm stance and votes for the removal of Guillermo Lasso in the impeachment trial against him for embezzlement. If the MUPP assembly members decide this time to pursue a more liberal agenda and seek to negotiate positions for personal gain, they will now have to oppose this individualistic and opportunistic agenda to the community oversight that will be exercised by CONAIE and the new MUPP leadership.
Those who choose to pursue their own agenda will have to accept it, but this time, outside the MUPP. Such is the consequence of community control over the MUPP, a control that was evident in the elections for its new national leadership. In other words, if before the MUPP's internal elections there was an atmosphere of uncertainty and ambiguity regarding the decisions they might make, this situation has now become a reality.
MUPP legislators regarding the impeachment of President Guillermo Lasso, now that atmosphere is clearer and uncertainty is transformed into certainty.
The same applies if President Lasso, facing imminent removal from office, decides to pursue a mutual dissolution of Congress. Should this occur, the social organization, together with its political structure, will jointly decide on the forms of participation, alliance policies, and mechanisms for subsequent oversight, as well as the political project to propose to the country.
Therefore, in these MUPP internal elections, not only was the fate of a political movement at stake, but, without any exaggeration, the political future of the country was and still is. This explains the atmosphere of anticipation they generated. When the right wing and the government saw their main allies in the indigenous movement losing ground, they immediately crafted a narrative to reject and delegitimize the results because, ultimately, their hold on power is at stake.
But the die was cast, and the right-wing positions within the indigenous movement that sought to definitively and radically separate the Pachakutik movement from CONAIE were finally defeated.
It is the line of confluence and convergence between CONAIE and MUPP that now holds control and power within the Indigenous organization. With this power, they face significant opportunities and challenges. They must regain their lost legitimacy and consistently articulate community control over decisions within their political system.
It is an agenda that, apparently, its leaders have clearly understood, and it is with this agenda and this new scenario that the country enters a new stage of its hegemonic transitions and, as expressed in his first statements, its new National Coordinator, the former Mayor of Cayambe, Guillermo Churuchumbi, now expressed his priority and project will be to lead the MUPP (the CONAIE is understood) to become the next government of Ecuador and, probably, with its first indigenous President.
1Ecuadorian professor. Member of the CLACSO Working Group on Bodies, Territories, Resistances.
