Is Another Chavez On the Rise in Ecuador?

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Another is the growing ill will among Ecuadorans toward foreign and U.S. firms like Occidental Petroleum, which recently had its operating contract in Ecuador revoked and $1 billion of its assets there seized for what the government called "unethical and illegal actions." (Occidental denies the charges.) What's more, Correa has pledged to kill free-trade talks with the U.S.; he has threatened to freeze Ecuador's foreign debt payments and says the country's economy should not "indefinitely" remain dollarized. (Ecuador switched its currency to the dollar in 2000.) Says Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington, D.C., "The U.S., especially the very strong anti-U.S. sentiment among many Ecuadorans today, is perhaps the most important issue in this election."

Correa denies suggestions that the oil-rich Chavez is helping to fund his campaign, and Chavez, since watching his outspoken support of the leftist candidates in Peru and Mexico backfire, has been uncharacteristically quiet about Ecuador. But analysts like Shifter notes that Correa, who recently visited Chavez, feels confident he can follow the Venezuelan's lead.

After his own anti-establishment election victory in 1998, Chavez was able to rewrite Venezuela's Constitution, dissolve its Congress and create a new, unicameral National Assembly dominated today by his allies. Correa's fledgling party has submitted no congressional candidates for Sunday's election, an almost sure sign that if he wins, he intends to dissolve and re-create Ecuador's legislature in his own populist image. Like Chavez, "Correa is converting his [organizational] weaknesses into virtues and, under the guise of democracy, he'll fashion a Congress favorable to his political project," says Ramiro Crespo, president of the Quito investment bank Analytica Securities.

But the problem for Correa, Shifter points out, is that by playing "the quintessential anti-establishment candidate," one who will take on not only Ecuador's corrupt ruling class but also the military and other entrenched institutions, "you wonder how he'll be able to govern if he's elected and creates that kind of atmosphere of confrontation."

After Ecuador's election, Washington stands to finish the year swallowing more leftist victories: polls show Daniel Ortega, the controversial former Sandinista President of Nicaragua, may well win that country's Nov. 5 election; and Chavez himself is expected to punctuate 2006 for the Latin left by winning re-election Dec. 3.

So what can the Bush Administration do in 2007 to regain the hemispheric influence that has hemorrhaged in recent years? As a start, says Shifter: "It could show that it is much more engaged with the social agenda in Latin America and not just interested in trade deals" that Latin Americans so often view as favorable to U.S. interests. Otherwise, Washington can expect to have a whole new generation of fiery Latin leaders calling it names.