The Third World project of national and social liberation burst into the world scene in the 1950s, led by the giants of the anti-colonial revolutions of Asia and Africa.  From the period 1955 to 1982, it proposed an alternative to the modern world-system, which had been constructed on a foundation of European colonial domination of vast regions of the Americas, Asia and Africa.  The Third World proposal for a New International Economic Order was adopted by the General Assembly in 1974 (see “The Third World Project, 1948-79” 7/20/2016 in the category Third World). 

     The Third World proposal was cast aside by the global powers, which proceeded to impose neoliberal policies on the world from 1980 to 2001.  But the Third World project was renewed, on a foundation of mass movements in opposition to neoliberalism, provoked by its overwhelmingly negative consequences for the peoples of the world. The global movement in opposition to neoliberal globalization has been particularly advanced in Latin America, where progressive and socialist movements have taken control of a number of governments (see various posts from July 22 to September 26, 2016 in the category Third World).  

     The renewal of the Third World project can be seen in the evolution in recent years of the leadership of the Group of 77.  Formed in 1964 by seventy-seven Third World nations, G-77 is a bloc within the United Nations, established for the purpose of promoting mutually beneficial trade among the member nations and with the goal of ameliorating the effects of colonialism, neocolonialism, and imperialism.  In now consists of 133 nations, including China, which joined in 1991.  It is now called the Group of 77 plus China (see “The nations of the Global South speak” 6/20/2014; 2014 Declaration of G-77).  

     Ecuador and Rafael Correa assumed the presidency of the Group of 77 plus China on January 13, 2017.  Correa was brought to the presidency of Ecuador by a popular social movement in opposition to the neoliberal project that emerged in the late 1990s.  Correa won the presidential elections of 2006, with the support of labor, peasant and indigenous organizations, soundly defeating a pro-neoliberal candidate supported by the national bourgeoisie and the United States.  Upon assuming the presidency on January 15, 2007, Correa immediately convoked elections for delegates to a constitutional assembly, in accordance with a campaign promise.  Nation Alliance, an alternative political party formed by Correa, won 80 of the 130 seats in the constitutional assembly, which developed a new constitution that was approved in popular referendum.  Correa was elected president under the new constitution in 2009 and was reelected in 2013.  As President, Correa has renegotiated the Ecuadorian national debt, making payments only on debts that were legitimately contracted.  This strategy has enabled the government to develop a budget in which social expenditures exceed debt payments.  The government of Correa also has nationalized underutilized properties and has attracted foreign investment in industries strategic for Ecuadoran economic development.  It did not renew a previous agreement with the United States for the use of an Ecuadorian Air Force Base by the U.S. military. Correa has declared that Ecuador is constructing “socialism for the twenty-first century” (see “Correa and the revolution in Ecuador” 9/19/2016).

     The emergence of Correa is part of a general social phenomenon in Latin America since 1994, in which leaders with exceptional capacities have been lifted up by the people and have led the people in changing the political reality of Latin America, stimulating the renewal of the Third World project of national and social liberation in Asia and Africa.  Other charismatic leaders include Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Luis Inácio Lula and Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, and Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Kirchner of Argentina.  The emergence of charismatic leaders is a general characteristic of revolutionary processes (see Charismatic Leaders).

     Upon receiving the mandate of the presidency of G-77, Correa addressed the representatives of the 133 member nations in New York.  He began by noting that Ecuador will continue the work of its predecessors in the presidency of G-77.  “Ecuador defends the principles that have guided the Group of 77 since 1964: unity, complementarity, cooperation and solidarity of the Global South.”  The Group of 77, he observed, seeks social and economic equality in the world, which requires the eradication of poverty and exclusion and the attainment of the right of the peoples to live with sovereignty and dignity and in peace.  

     Correa maintained that poverty in the world is “a consequence of unjust and excluding systems.” And he proclaimed that “the overcoming of poverty of the greatest moral imperative of the planet.”

     Correa maintained that the global South seeks not only economic development but also a new notion of integral development, which involves the development of the whole person and of all persons.  In Ecuador, the concept of integral development is based on the heritage of the ancestral peoples and on the idea expressed in the quichua language as sumak kawsay, which means “living well.”

     He rejected the neoliberal project of the global powers.  “Neoliberal globalization does not seek to create planetary societies, but only planetary markets; it does not seek to create citizens of the world, but only global consumers.”  “The idea that free commerce always benefits everyone is simply fallacious, an extreme ingenuousness closer to religion than to science, and it cannot withstand a profound historical, empirical or theoretical analysis.”

     Correa observed that the savage capitalism of the eighteenth century and the Industrial Revolution caused workers to die from excessive working hours.  This historic exploitation, he maintains, was overcome by means of collection action through nation-states, which placed limits to these abuses.  But today, such collective action does not exist for the confrontation of the present process of globalization.  

      The remedy to this situation is unified political action by the peoples of the world, as a foundation for the taking of political power by the people in a number of nations.  “What is required is the capture of political power, in order to transform the relations of power in service of the great majority and to change our apparent states, representing only the interests of the few, into truly popular states, representing the interests of the great majority.”

     Correa called for “the transformation of the system of the United Nations, such that the General Assembly makes the great political decisions of humanity, and not the veto power of the small group of countries in the Security Council.”  He demanded an end to the privatization of knowledge and the diffusion of knowledge so that it is available for all of humanity.  And he advocated the creation of an International Court of Environmental Justice, with the authority to sanction attacks against the rights of nature and to establish obligations with respect to an ecological debt and to the consumption of natural resources.

     He called for a new international financial infrastructure.  From the point of view of the countries of the South, he maintained, it does not make sense to attempt to reform the Bretton Woods financial institutions, established by the global powers in 1944.  “We ought to construct our own international financial architectures, in order that our savings remain in the region and do not go to finance the richest countries, such as when our central banks, frequently autonomous and without democratic control, send hundreds of billions of our reserves to other countries, not only financing, but also transferring wealth to the most developed countries, while we continue depending on foreign loans and foreign investment” that do not change existing economic structures.

      He maintained that the dominant Western model of democracy has been imposed; it is a model that does not serve the needs of the people.  Real democracy requires equality of opportunity, but these imposed Western democracies grant sovereignty to capital and not to the people.  It would be best to call them “market-media” democracies, because they measure democracy by the size of the market, and because the media of communication are a more important component of the political process than the political parties and political authorities.  “We must ask ourselves if a society can be truly free when the societal communication, particularly information, comes from private profit-seeking businesses that are the property of the great corporations or a half dozen families, many of them without the most elementary ethics.”

      He criticized a confused understanding of human rights.  Many believe that only the state attacks human rights.  But “in fact, any power can attack human rights.”  For example, profit-seeking pharmaceutical transnationals condemn to death the poor that are not able to buy medicine that could save their lives; and the media of communication attack the reputation, the intimacy and the prestige of persons.

      Correa described fiscal paradises as “the extreme expression of a capitalism without face, without responsibility, without transparency, and without country.”  He maintained that “fiscal paradises are the worst enemies of our states,” because they exist for the purpose of evading taxes or hiding the origin of illicit wealth.  The poor nations and the economies in development are the most victimized by fiscal paradises.  In Latin America alone, 32 million persons could be lifted from poverty, if the resources hidden in fiscal paradises were taxed in accordance with the appropriate laws.  “The world needs more knowledge paradises and less fiscal paradises.”  

     We are here, Correa declared, “to demand democracy and to stress an alternative possible world, the urgent world that we require, the world of peace and justice, that is constructed through respect for the sovereignty of the nations and the prosperity of the peoples.”

     Correa concludes with a reference to the advanced stage of the popular movements in Latin America, more advanced today that in the period 1948 to 1979.  “Who governs in a society?  The elites or the great majority?  Capital or human beings?  The market or the society? In many countries of Latin America, with socialism of the twenty-first century and of living well, our peoples already govern.  And although their remains much to do, never before has so much been done.”

     Rafael Correa speaks on behalf of a Third World in renewed social movement, which envisions a sustainable future for humanity on the basis of fundamental universal principles: the rights of the nations of the world to sovereignty and integral development; the eradication of poverty; the rejection of the neoliberal prioritizing of markets over people as scientifically unsound and morally unjustifiable; the right of the peoples to collectively act in order to take power from the corporate elite; the democratization of the United Nations; the creation of a more just international financial architecture; and the need for the development of a form of democracy that responds to the needs of the people.  Many Third World governments, with the cooperation of China and Russia, are seeking to develop, in theory and practice, an alternative world-system based on these concepts and principles. They are doing so precisely at the historic moment in which the global powers are demonstrating their moral and intellectual incapacity to rescue the world-system from its sustained structural crisis, thereby revealing the unsustainability of the neocolonial world-system.  

     As these dynamics unfold, cynicism abounds in the North, and even popular social movements of the North are characterized by limited understandings and confusions.  But in the South, hope is alive, and the peoples, led by leaders with exceptional gifts, are developing that unity of thought and action required for the establishment of a possible and necessary more just, democratic and sustainable world-system. The activists and intellectuals of the North would do well to listen to the voices of the Third World, and to permit themselves to be inspired and to learn.

Posted September 19, 2016

       My most recent posts on the Third World project have been discussing the renewal of the Third World project since 1994.  They have included posts on Venezuela and Bolivia, focusing on the post-1994 emergence of social movements that have taken political power and established new constitutions, proclaiming that they seek to construct socialism for the twenty-first century.  I continue today with reflections on the “Citizen Revolution” and the emergence of Rafael Correa as a charismatic leader in Ecuador.

     A popular movement in Ecuador in opposition to neoliberal policies emerged in the late 1990s.  By 2005, the movement arrived to express widespread popular disgust with the established political class and the traditional political parties.  Popular mobilizations were demanding the dismissal of the President, the Supreme Court, and all the politicians. The popular movement was opposed to the structural adjustment policies that required cutbacks in education, public health and social security in order to make payments on the external debt; it demanded payment of the “social debt” before the external debt.  The movement rejected the failure of the political establishment to defend the sovereignty of the nation before the neocolonial intentions of the United States.  It was opposed to the US proposal for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and it called for terminating the US military base in Ecuador and Ecuadorian participation in the US-sponsored Plan Colombia.

      In 2006, Rafael Correa emerged as the leader of the popular movement.  Correa was born into the lower middle class, but he was able to attend the university and subsequently earn masters’ degrees in the United States and Belgium, becoming a college professor in Ecuador.  As a young man, he worked in Catholic missions among the poor, and he continues to be a practicing Catholic.  He arrived to national prominence in 2005, when at the age of 43 he was named to the cabinet of the government of Alfredo Palacio and immediately proceeded to publicly criticize the International Monetary Fund.  As Minister of the Economy, he promised to channel petroleum income more toward social services and less to the payment of the external debt.  He asserted that he intended seek a renegotiation of the debt payments, and that a proposed Free Trade Agreement with the United States would be submitted to a popular consultation.  However, because of conflicts with the government of Palacio, Correa resigned his post.

     By now a favorite of the middle class, Correa established an alternative political party, Nation Alliance, which decided to enter only the presidential elections and not congressional elections, placing its hopes in the immediate formation of a Constitutional Assembly. Correa finished second among 13 candidates in the 2006 presidential elections, receiving 23% of the vote, thus qualifying for the run-off elections.  His support was mostly from the middle and upper-middle classes, especially progressives that had ties to social foundations and non-governmental organizations.  He received a low percentage of votes from the poor sectors, as a result of the fact that he had not been involved in the popular mass organizations or the political parties of the Left.  

     In the run-off elections, however, Correa received the endorsements of labor, peasant, and indigenous organizations as well as some of the political parties, which viewed him as a much better option than Álvaro Noboa, who had the support of the Ecuadorian national bourgeoisie, the government of the United States, and transnational companies.  Noboa supported the proposed FTAA, and he proposed changes that would strengthen foreign investment and facilitate access of international capital to Ecuadorian natural resources, including petroleum.  He favored privatization, including those sectors that provided vital human needs to the population.  He also asserted that Ecuador ought to break relations with Cuba and Venezuela.

     Standing in sharp contrast to Noboa, Correa declared during the campaign that he would renegotiate the Ecuadorian external debt with the international finance agencies, basing the negotiation on conditions established by the Ecuadorian state, and not on conditions laid down by the international finance agencies.  He promised that his government would not sign a Free Trade Agreement with the United States, and that instead of an economic integration with the United States based on “free trade,” Ecuador ought to be oriented toward an economic and social integration with Latin America, seeking to strengthen ties with emerging regional associations as well as Venezuela and Cuba.  He also declared that his government would not renew the agreement with the United States for the use of the Ecuadorian Air Force Base in the city of Manta by the U.S. military, when this accord terminates during 2009.  And he declared that he would not permit the country to participate in the Plan Colombia of the United States.  Correa asserted that he would convoke a Constitutional National Assembly, thus establishing alternative structures that would create new mechanisms for the effective participation of the citizens in the public decisions of importance for the country.  The Constitutional Assembly ought to be formed by the various sectors of the country, including representatives of workers, peasants, students, and retired persons.


    Correa defeated Noboa in the run-off presidential elections with 59% of the vote, and he assumed the presidency on January 15, 2007. That same day, he initiated the steps for a popular referendum on a Constitutional Assembly. The National Congress, in which Nation Alliance did not have representation, tried to block the referendum, but the Electoral Court, taking into account the strong popular sentiment for a referendum, ruled that it should be held.  In March 2007, a popular referendum approved the convocation of a constitutional assembly.  On September 30, elections to the Constitutional Assembly were held, in which 70% of the voters supported candidates that shared the political-economic project of Correa, and Nation Alliance won 80 of the 130 seats in the Constitutional Assembly.  A new Constitution was developed by the Assembly, and it was approved in a popular referendum.

     Under the new Constitution, elections for President, Vice-President, and the Legislative Assembly were held on April 26, 2009.  Correa won the elections on the first round, with 51.94% of the votes, far ahead of Lucio Gutierrez with 28.24% and Álvaro Noboa with less than 8%.  The Nation Alliance attained an ample victory in the elections for Legislative Assembly, and the Pachakutik movement, the Democratic Popular Movement, the Socialist Party also won strong representation, giving overwhelming control of the Legislative Assembly to the newly formed non-traditional parties of the Left.  Correa was re-elected president in 2013; the Nation Alliance and its allies from newly-formed non-traditional parties of the Left continue to have a strong majority in the Legislative Assembly.

    In addition to a new Constitution, the Correa government has renegotiated external debt payments on the basis of the principle that it will make payment only on debt that was legitimately contracted, with the result that for the first time, social spending has exceeded payment of external debts.  It has stimulated investments in strategic industries, such as the hydroelectric industry, petroleum refineries, and the transportation infrastructure.  It has provided incentives to national production, with the intention of responding to the food needs of the population.  It has nationalized property poorly utilized.  It has not renewed the agreement for the U.S. military base in Manta.  

    Correa maintains that the Citizen Revolution in Ecuador seeks to construct “Socialism for the XXI Century,” which involves a form of socialism “applied to the particularities of Ecuador.”  Correa maintains that Socialism for the XXI Century has important points of coincidence with the scientific socialism of Marx and Engels, including the principle that “it is the people who ought to command, and not the market” as well as the concept of “the importance of collective action.”  

     But socialism for the XXI century, Correa maintains, is different from classic socialism.  First, while classic socialism “sought state ownership of all the means of production,” Ecuadorian socialism for the XXI century seeks state ownership only of those means of production that “are strategic for the economy of the nation, and therefore cannot be in private hands.”  Secondly, classic socialism had a concept of development not very different from that of capitalism, in that it utilized “the same concept of industrial development and growth in production.”  But socialism for the XXI century seeks to formulate and practice an alternative model, based on the concept of sustainable development.  Thirdly, socialism for the XXI century expresses itself in various forms, without the model of one country being replicated in another.  “We ought to speak of principles, and not of models” (Correa 2014).

     On January 29, 2015, Ecuador and Rafael Correa assumed the presidency of Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).  Founded in Venezuela in 2011, CELAC consists of the governments of the 33 nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.  It is the culmination of the process of Latin American and Caribbean unity that has been unfolding since 2001.  It is conceived as an alternative to the Pan-American project, which the United States imposed following World War II as a project of economic integration and political cooperation under US direction (see “Pan-Americanism and OAS” 10/2/2013). 

     In his speech at the closing of the Third Summit of CELAC in Costa Rica on January 29, 2015, Correa invoked the memory of the heroes of Latin America and the Caribbean, including Toussaint, Bolivar, Zapata, Sandino, Che, Allende, and Chávez.  And he maintained:

​     Correa proposed that CELAC would work toward implementation of a plan of action focusing on five central themes: the reduction of extreme poverty and inequality; the expansion of education and the development of research and knowledge in a form that serves the public good; the protection of the environment and the struggle against climate change; the development of an alternative regional financial infrastructure; and the strengthening of the power of CELAC as a regional bloc.

     He noted that the establishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, although it does not end the US blockade that violates international law, represents a “victory of the Cuban people [that] is a true lesson in dignity, resistance and sovereignty that Cuba transmits to the world.”  He also criticized the United States for its manipulation of the issue of human rights as a mechanism to preserve structures of neocolonial domination.

      Correa criticized the historic conduct of transnational corporations in Latin America and the Caribbean, and he noted that bilateral treaties of investment obligate the states of the region to surrender their sovereignty to courts in the North, which act in an arbitrary manner to sanction unjust arrangements.  “Latin America and the Caribbean needs foreign investment, but we ought to take on the task of creating a more just and balanced framework of relations between States and transnationals, which would make possible mutual benefit and respect for human rights and the rights of nature.”

     He concludes:

    For the full text of Correa’s speech at the Third Summit of CELAC in Costa Rica on January 29, 2015, see “The eradication of poverty is a moral imperative for our region and for the entire planet.”

Reference
 
Correa, Rafael.  2014.  Ecuador: De Banana Republic a la No República.  La Habana: Fondo Editorial Casa de las Américas.
 
 
Key words: Correa, Ecuador, revolution, socialism for the 21st century, CELAC

      On a social foundation of popular movements that emerged in the late 1990s in opposition to the neoliberal project imposed by the global elite, a new political reality has emerged in Latin America.  Progressive political parties, formed by a new generation of charismatic leaders, have taken power in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua and El Salvador, and all thirty-three nations of the region have formed the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC for its initials in Spanish).  The new political project seeks to defend the sovereignty of the nations of the region in opposition to global neocolonial structures, and it endeavors to defend the social and economic rights of the people.  Ecuador and its president Rafael Correa are a leading voice in the new Latin American political reality.  

     The “Citizen Revolution” led by Correa now proposes to take a further step in the democratic transformation of the country by means of a new inheritance law and a new law on profits.  The proposed inheritance law would impose a progressive tax on inherited property with a value equivalent to 100 times the minimum salary, which at present would be a value of 35,400 US dollars.  Only 2.5% of Ecuadorians receive an inheritance, and of these, only 10% receive an inheritance of such value.  Inasmuch as the government of Correa would use the additional state income to further advance social programs for the popular classes, the new law would tax the wealthiest sector in order to provide services and benefits to the poor, workers, and the middle class.  Furthermore, the proposal includes measures that are designed to eliminate loopholes and tax evasion.  In a similar vein, the proposed law on profits would stop illegitimate profits obtained through speculation in the sale of land and property, above all in zones where there are government works and projects.

      Understood in global historical context, the proposed laws are similar to the Keynesian measures of the capitalist economies of Europe and the United States during the period 1929 to 1980, which developed progressive inheritance taxes and took modest steps to control the excesses of financial speculation.  Nonetheless, in the context of Latin America, which has the highest level of inequality in the world, and which historically has been ruled by an oligarchy that has made few concessions to the social and economic rights of the people, the proposed laws have provoked reactionary movement. 

     The Ecuadoran oligarchy, the Ecuadoran Right, and their international allies are using the proposed laws in order to seed popular confusion and political destabilization, seeking to undermine the new constitutional order established by the Citizen Revolution.  They are taking advantage of their control of the media of communication to disseminate misinformation among the people, maintaining that the proposed laws will impose high taxes on the people.  They have organized demonstrations and protests, in some cases violent protests.

     In response to the initiative of the Right, Correa called for a mass demonstration and proclaimed a day of “happiness and revolution.”  Thousands of Ecuadorans responded to the call, demonstrating their support for the president in a mass “mobilization of happiness.”  In addition, Correa announced a temporary withdrawal of the two proposed laws.  He expressed a desire to avoid conflict and violence, particularly at a moment when the country is preparing to host a visit by Pope Francis from July 5 to July 8.  Correa, a devout Catholic, indicated his desire to receive the Pope in an atmosphere of peace.

      Furthermore, Correa called for a national dialogue concerning the proposed laws.  He challenged the Ecuadoran Right to arrive with proofs in hand, showing to the country the supposedly negative consequences that would result from the enactment of the proposed laws.  He insisted that arguments are required, not shouts and manipulations.  He indicated that he is prepared to shelve the proposals indefinitely, if the Right can demonstrate the negative consequences of the proposed laws for the poor and the middle class.

      Correa also commented on the manner in which some middle class and upper class Ecuadorian youth have been speaking of the poor.  These youth, he asserted, believe that the poor are to be blamed for their poverty, claiming that they lack the personal qualities that would enable them to improve their economic situation.  Against this view, Correa maintained that poverty has deeply rooted historic and systemic roots, for which the poor are the least responsible.  He rejected a disparaging view of the poor as an explanation of poverty.
  
      Correa maintained that the national dialogue should include debate concerning the kind of nation Ecuadorans wish to create.  The Citizen Revolution, he asserted, seeks a more just society, in which wealth is more equally distributed, giving priority to the people and not to the directors of companies.  

      Although it implies a delay in the implementation of the proposed laws, the proposal of a national dialogue, challenging opponents to present evidence and arguments, is an intelligent strategy, for it seeks to move the conflict to a terrain less subject to manipulation by particular interests.  One of the most potent arms of the popular movements of the last two centuries has been the use of reason:  analyses of important trends in human history, the presentation of fundamental historical and social facts, and the reaffirmation of universal human values.  The world forces of opposition and reaction have responded to this popular challenge not with reason and reasonable argument.  Instead, they have cast reason aside in order to defend their special privileges and particular interests.  They have sought, with considerable success, to stimulate popular fear and confusion by means of, first, ideological distortions that ignore fundamental historical and contemporary facts, and secondly, through the discrediting of popular leaders with lies and half-truths.  Their most important arms are the sound bite and superficiality; their most powerful enemy is informed discourse rooted in understanding and commitment to universal human values.  The challenge confronting the global social movements is to establish reason, informed understanding, and commitment to universal human values as the basis of political action and social development.  The accomplishment of this task would mark a decisive turn in the construction of a more just and democratic world-system, a process that has begun from below.

      Although Correa has appropriately raised the challenge of reasoned discourse, it is not clear that the Ecuadorian Right will accept it.  Correa’s call for a national dialogue has been praised by the Conference of Bishops and the Chamber of Industry and Production, but opposition leaders have announced the continuation of the protests and street demonstrations.  They perhaps are not interested in reasoned discourse concerning the proposed laws and the future of Ecuadoran society, for their true intention is to destabilize a newly established constitutional process that has removed the elite form a privileged position of power.  They reject the recently-established decision-making process that gives priority to the interests and needs of the people.

     The Citizen Revolution is rooted in popular movements in opposition to the neoliberal project that emerged in the late 1990s.  By 2005, popular mobilizations in Ecuador were demanding the dismissal of the Supreme Court, the President, and all the politicians.  They expressed opposition to: the US proposal for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA); the participation of Ecuador in Plan Colombia; the US military base in Colombia; the increasing impoverishment of the people; and the neoliberal dismantlement of education, public health, and social security.  They defended the sovereignty of the nation against the neocolonial intentions of the United States.  They proclaimed the need to pay the social debt before the external debt.

      Rafael Correa, a former college professor born into the lower middle class, became a known political figure in 2005, when he was named Minister of the Economy and immediately proceeded to make public statements critical of the International Monetary Fund and implying support for the popular proposals.  In 2006, he formed a new political party, Nation Alliance, which proposed a Constitutional Assembly.  Correa won the presidential elections of 2006 on the second round, receiving ample support from the popular movements and organizations.  On his Inauguration Day, January 15, 2007, he initiated the process for a Constitutional Assembly.  In spite of opposition by the Right, a popular referendum approved the convoking of a constitutional assembly, elections to the constitutional assembly were held, and a new constitution was approved via popular consultation.  Inasmuch as the candidates of Nation Alliance and others who supported the political-economic proposal of Correa had an ample majority in the Constitutional Assembly, the new Constitution has a progressive character, reflecting the new political reality in Latin America today.

      Correa was elected to the Presidency under the new constitution in 2009 and was reelected in 2013.  The Nation Alliance and its allies from newly-formed non-traditional parties of the Left have a strong majority in the Legislative Assembly.

     Correa has proclaimed himself a proponent of “socialism for the twenty-first century,” which is adapted to the particular needs of Ecuador and is different in important respects from classical socialism.  His government has sought to defend the sovereignty of the nation, in opposition to neocolonial structures of the world-system.  It has re-negotiated the external debt and has emphasized social spending and national industrial development.

     On January 29, 2015, Rafael Correa and Ecuador assumed the presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

     For more on Rafael Correa and the Citizen Revolution in Ecuador, see About Rafael Correa.  For speeches by Correa, see ¨The eradication of poverty is a moral imperative for our region and for the entire planet¨ and “Address by Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador, at the Seventh Summit of the Americas, Panama City, Panama, April 12, 2015.”