Gutierrez, Lucio

▪ 2004

      The inauguration of former army colonel Lucio Gutiérrez as Ecuador's president on Jan. 15, 2003, marked a dramatic reversal of fortune. Just three years earlier, Gutiérrez had been imprisoned for having taken part in a failed uprising. Ecuadorans, however, hungry for fresh solutions to their country's seemingly endless difficulties, gave him a resounding mandate in the elections of 2002. He joined a growing list of political outsiders chosen to lead Latin American countries.

      Lucio Edwin Gutiérrez Borbúa was born on March 23, 1957, in Quito and raised in Tena, an Amazon basin town. He was the son of a traveling salesman and attended primary and secondary school in Tena before transferring at the age of 15 to military college in Quito. Gutiérrez graduated from the Army Polytechnic School as a civil engineer after having won honours for academic and athletic prowess. He later studied in Brazil and the United States.

      Gutiérrez rose steadily through the army ranks and in 1990–92 served with the United Nations observer mission to Nicaragua. As a young man he demonstrated little interest in politics, but during the 1990s he sympathized with fellow Ecuadorans as they became increasingly disenchanted with corruption and poverty. In 1997, as aide-de-camp to Pres. Abdalá Bucaram Ortiz, he refused an order to use force against a crowd outside the presidential palace. Bucaram fled the palace and was later removed from office by Ecuador's congress. In 1999 Gutiérrez repeatedly questioned the government's conduct and pointedly refused to shake Pres. Jamil Mahuad Witt's hand during a public ceremony in December.

      On Jan. 21, 2000, after Mahuad announced the replacement of Ecuador's national currency with the U.S. dollar, Indian protesters supported by middle-ranking military officers seized the national congress building. Gutiérrez announced that he and two others had formed a “junta of national salvation.” The rebellion was short-lived, however; Gutiérrez lacked the confidence of the military high command. He was replaced in the junta by Gen. Carlos Mendoza, the armed forces chief of staff, who announced that Vice Pres. Gustavo Noboa Bejarano would succeed Mahuad.

      Jailed after the uprising, Gutiérrez was pardoned in June 2000 after a public campaign led by his wife, Ximena Bohórquez Romero, a physician, with whom he had two daughters. He left the army, founded the January 21 Patriotic Society movement, and plunged into civilian politics, promising an all-out war on corruption, racial inequality, and poverty. “In Ecuador, 80% of the people do not have a half-decent life,” he said. Nevertheless, he dropped his early opposition to dollarization, and after his election he moved quickly to calm fears of a radical shift. In August 2003, however, he lost the congressional support of the Indian movement Pachakutik, and the future of his legislative program was thrown into doubt.

Paul Knox

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