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Ecuador Personalist Movements
According to Hurtado, political parties were always relatively
insignificant in the Ecuadorian political process, whereas
individuals transformed into caudillos played the dominant role.
None of the personalist movements, however, had more than a
temporary impact on politics, usually only as long as their leader
enjoyed popularity. Major personalist movements have included the
National Velasquista Party (Partido Nacional Velasquista--PNV),
organized in 1952 by Velasco; the Social Christian Movement
(Movimiento Social Cristiano--MSC), founded in 1951 by former
president Camilo Ponce Enríquez; the Democratic Institutionalist
Coalition (Coalición Institucionalista Democrática--CID), founded
in 1965 by former provisional president Otto Arosemena Gómez; and
the Concentration of Popular Forces (Concentración de Fuerzas
Populares--CFP), a Guayaquil-based, populist and center-right party
organized in the late 1940s as a splinter of the velasquista
movement by Carlos Guevara Moreno, a former interior minister. In
1980 a roldosista faction broke away from the CFP and formed
People, Change and Democracy (Pueblo, Cambio y Democracia--PCD),
which dissolved after the death of its leader Jaime Roldós Aguilera
in 1981. The populist Ecuadorian Roldosist Party (Partido
Roldosista Ecuatoriano--PRE), led by Abdalá Bucaram Ortiz (nephew
of Asaad Bucaram Elmhalim, a staunchly anti-Marxist former mayor of
Guayaquil and former leader of the CFP) was founded in Guayaquil in
late 1982.
In order to participate more effectively in elections,
personalist movements often joined ad hoc coalitions of parties.
Every president elected to office since 1944, with the exception of
Velasco, owed his victory to a coalition rather than to a single
party. Although most of these coalitions were unstable and shortlived , a few had a semipermanent character, emerging from dormancy
at each election and representing roughly the same groups and
interests each time. One of the most important was the National
Democratic Front (Frente Democrático Nacional--FDN), which usually
formed around the nucleus of the PLR, frequently along with the
PSE. Often more successful than the moderate FDN was the
conservative Popular Alliance (Alianza Popular--AP), usually
composed of Conservatives, arnistas (members of ARNE), and
MSC members. The AP was responsible for Ponce Enríquez's victory in
1956 and congressional victories in 1958 and 1962.
Data as of 1989
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