In July of 1978, there was an extremely big political switch in Ecuador. For almost the past decade Ecuador had been under Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra’s dictatorship who had been elected to be president five times, this led him to take on dictatorship powers in 1970 after winning his last election in 1968. However, even though Ecuador encountered the fact that they were under a dictatorship with President Velasco Ibarra in leadership due to the amount of oil production as a country Ecuador was prospering financially.
Eventually, after Ecuador was under dictatorship for 6 years with Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra and it disrupted the democracy they previously had. President Velasco Ibarra was expelled from office and removed by the army resulting at the end of his dictatorship. This caused there to be a Presidential election in order to restore democracy, at the time of elections there were 6 candidates running for office with 4 candidates in the lead, but due to there not being a 50% majority there had to be another election to determine the new President.
Just like all other Latin American countries during this time period, Ecuador spent several years under dictatorship. As a result of his removal, over 2 million Ecuadorian voters showed up from the wealthy prosperous people to the impoverished laborers and came out during election day showed that they were interested in democracy. It is clear that the citizens Krause talks to the fact they don’t know much about democracy and worry some about coming out of dictatorship and not knowing much about it on. It is clear that the military will try and take over again but go in with the hopes of trying to take over again. Due to it being known of United States often supporting dictators specifically those in the military since they know they will continue in focusing on a capitalistic mindset and not in communism mindsets(Chasteen).
Work Cited
Krause, Charles A. Washington Post Foreign. 1978. “Ecuadorians Electing President After Six Years of Dictatorship.” The Washington Post (1974-Current File), July 17, 1978.
José María Velasco Ibarra. March 7, 1973. [1] Dutch National Archives, The Hague, Fotocollectie Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau (ANEFO), 1945-1989 bekijk toegang 2.24.01.04 Bestanddeelnummer 926-2656. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jos%C3%A9_Mar%C3%ADa_Velasco_Ibarra.jpg.
Chasteen, John Charles. Born in Blood & Fire. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016