Correa, Rafael

▪ 2009

Rafael Correa Delgado 

born April 6, 1963, Guayaquil, Ecuador

 When leftist economist Rafael Correa scored a decisive election triumph over banana magnate Álvaro Noboa in the 2006 presidential election, many predicted that political instability and social chaos would ensue, but toward the end of 2008 Correa's popularity at home remained well above 60%. Though commentators made much of the new Ecuadoran leader's friendship and affinity with Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chávez, Correa brushed the criticism aside, vowing to carry out an “economic revolution” that put Ecuadorans before debt payment and oil profits. “Markets should be subject to societies, not the other way around,” he said. After taking office in 2007, Correa launched a deeply reformist agenda that antagonized some business and media groups, but he proved more capable of diplomacy, alliance-building, and pragmatism than many in Ecuador's notoriously fractious political elite.

      Concern for social and economic problems tinged the life of Correa from an early age. Though his maternal grandfather was a great-nephew of former president José Eloy Alfaro Delgado, he grew up in straitened circumstances. Correa said that his father, during a period of unemployment, agreed to carry illegal drugs aboard a flight to the U.S. His father was arrested and served several years in jail, and Correa recalled that his mother made ends meet by selling food that she prepared at home.

      Friends and acquaintances remembered Correa as a bright, intense young man who tolerated opposing views with difficulty. He attended the prestigious San José La Salle high school on a scholarship and was active in the Boy Scout movement. Correa spent a year as a church-sponsored volunteer with Quechua-speaking Indians in Cotopaxi province. He received a master's degree from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium and a doctorate from the University of Illinois; his thesis examined the effects of economic globalization on living standards in the less-developed world.

      Correa served briefly as Ecuador's finance minister in 2005, and the following year he defeated Noboa in a runoff vote for the presidency after proving himself to be a skilled, charismatic political campaigner. As president, Correa promoted sweeping constitutional changes, increased agricultural subsidies, and seized companies owned by members of a powerful family implicated in a banking scandal in the 1990s. In early 2008 he broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia after that country's forces raided a guerrilla camp inside Ecuador; Correa later installed a new defense chief, the country's fourth since his inauguration. An independent poll indicated that Correa would have the majority he needed to win a September 28 referendum on a new constitution that would extend his power.

Paul Knox

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