Ecuador: Half the Population Believes that govt acts on behalf of all citizens

Guillaume Long/Opendemocracy.net wrote /
Guillaume Long is the president of the international commission of the governing Alianza PAIS party in Ecuador and the minister for culture. His twitter page is @GuillaumeLong

This latest wave of conservative euphoria in the face of Latin America’s economic travails is just the most recent chapter in an ongoing campaign to undermine and delegitimize the region’s leftist governments. Barring rare exceptions, the coverage of the Latin American left turn by both the conservative press (which was to be expected) and the liberal media (where one would have hoped for more objective coverage) has been abysmally biased. But the negativity and pessimism was never innocent. Downbeat coverage was always an attempt at a self-fulfilling prophecy. Margaret Thatcher’s perverse “There is no alternative” is so deeply ingrained in the worldview of analysts and journalists that any demonstration that another developmental paradigm is possible had to be denied from the outset.

Such disproportionate and often inaccurate criticism of progressive governments boosts an already emboldened rightwing, weakens the Left and its call for alternatives and dissuades people from daring to stray from the path that financial capital has set for our societies. This is why refuting the false charges and dispelling the myths are increasingly important tasks for progressives and an essential part of the intensifying global struggle for a better world.

FOR A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF ECUADOR’S CULTURE – READ THIS BOOK

The case of Ecuador, which has faced particularly strong hostility from the corporate media, perhaps because of its very success, is illustrative. Three recurrent themes have been used to undermine Ecuador’s Citizens’ Revolution.

Ecuador along with Uruguay, Argentina and Bolivia make up four of the five electorates most satisfied with their democracy. Ecuador is also one of only four countries where more than half of the population believes that their governments act on behalf of all the people. Leftwing Uruguay, Bolivia and Nicaragua make up the others. It is unsurprising then that almost nine years after his first accession to the presidency, President Correa still tops 60% in his approval ratings. Read Article