- Title: ECUADOR: COLONEL LUCIO GUTIERREZ WINS ECUADORIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
- Date: 24th November 2002
- Summary: (W1) QUITO, ECUADOR (NOVEMBER 24, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. SV: SECURITY CLOSING ELECTION CENTRE DOORS 0.10 2. VARIOUS OF VOTES BEING COUNTED (3 SHOTS) 0.21 3. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) MAJOR FRANKLIN QUINTERO, ELECTION SECURITY, SAYING: "I think that the armed forces job here has guaranteed security and democracy." 0.30 4. MV/SV: SECURITY FORCES TAKING BALLOTS TO BE COUNTED (2 SHOTS) 0.36 5. VARIOUS OF MEDIA WATCHING ELECTION RESULTS COME IN (2 SHOTS) 0.42 6. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) CARLOS AGUINAGA, PRESIDENT OF ECUADOREAN ELECTORAL COUNCIL, SAYING: "The Supreme Electoral Tribunal and the private sector has been able to bring to the country quick, clear results." 0.55 (NIGHTSHOTS) 7. VARIOUS OF GUTIERREZ ARRIVING AND GREETING SUPPORTERS (2 SHOTS) 1.11 8. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) GUTIERREZ SAYING: "I want to say to all those poor Ecuadoreans, to the retirees, to the crafts workers, to the farmers, to the small businessmen, to the street vendors, to the women that supported Lucio Gutierrez I will not disappoint you. This dream began with the idea of forming a political party. With much effort, and with some sceptics calling us crazy because we didn't have the money to form a political party, I would say I don't have money but I have an immense spiritual fortune and that political party became a reality. We participated in the elections, some said it was impossible to have a political structure without having members of Congress, without having mayors, without having economic resources, that it was impossible to win the Presidency." 2.33 9. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) WIDE OF GUTIERREZ ADDRESSING NEWS CONFERENCE; GUTIERREZ SAYING: "We want to inaugurate a new political way in Ecuador. A government that's more responsible, a government that always thinks of the national interest first. That is the only way to not make mistakes. If we keep thinking of particular interests, Ecuador will continue in the place we have been left. We Ecuadoreans do not have an alternative. We unite, or we unite and that from the bottom of my heart having as a witness our God who is guiding from the highest point, I invite you to this great national agreement." 3.30 10. VARIOUS OF COLONEL LUCIO GUTIERREZ'S SUPPORTERS CELEBRATING (2 SHOTS) 3.48 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 9th December 2002 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: QUITO, ECUADOR
- Country: Ecuador
- Reuters ID: LVA5FAS33PGQ0H4R2J5TAT0JRG48
- Story Text: A retired Ecuadorean army colonel, once jailed for his
part in a coup, has won power legally in presidential
elections, as his vow to crack down on corrupt politicians and
bankers gained votes from the poor and native Indians.
The 45-year-old Colonel Lucio Gutierrez who campaigned
in a military-style uniform reminiscent of the one he wore
when he led his troops to support an Indian uprising which
overthrew elected President Jamil Mahuad in 2000, won 54.3
percent of votes.
He finished well ahead of Ecuador's richest man, banana
billionaire Alvaro Noboa, on 45.7 percent, according to the
electoral tribunal, after 97 percent of votes were counted.
"I want to say to all those poor Ecuadoreans, to the
retirees, to the crafts workers, to the farmers, to the small
businessmen, to the street vendors, to the women that
supported Lucio Gutierrez I will not disappoint you,"
Gutierrez said after winning.
The 52-year-old Noboa played on fears Gutierrez could
split Ecuador as another coup-leader-turned-president, Hugo
Chavez, has done in Venezuela. But Gutierrez, whose dark
features helped him win votes in a nation dominated by a white
minority, has pledged consensus and to include business in
major decisions in struggling Ecuador, which defaulted on
foreign debt in 1999.
Trying hard to woo foreign investors and the United States
(U.S.), Gutierrez has dropped earlier suggestions that he
could abandon the U.S. dollar as national currency and says he
wants Ecuador to join a future Free Trade Area of the
Americas.
The retired Colonel's success, as Ecuadorean voters
rejected traditional political parties, fits into a recent
pattern in Latin America, where anti-establishment leftists
like Chavez and Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have won
power.
Gutierrez wants life in jail for state employees caught
stealing more than $5,000 and to extradite corrupt bankers who
have fled abroad -- a popular measure in a country where the
memory of a banking collapse in the late 1990s still smarts.
"We want to inaugurate a new political way in Ecuador. A
government more responsible, a government that always thinks
of the national interest first. That is the only way to not
make mistakes," said Gutierrez.
He promises free health care and cheap housing for the 60
percent of the country's 12 million people who live in
poverty. Hundreds of thousands of Ecuadoreans have emigrated
to the United States and Spain since 1999 to seek a better
life.
Ecuador is one of Latin America's most unstable countries,
and its last two elected presidents were overthrown before
finishing their terms -- Mahuad and the colourful Abdala
Bucaram, who liked to be known as "the Crazy One" and was
fired by Congress on grounds of "mental incompetence."
Gutierrez, a trim former pentathlete who joined the army
at 15, has gone to pains to re-assure investors that he is no
left-wing extremist. He put on a conservative suit to visit
Wall Street, where he told financiers Ecuador would meet its
debt obligations and seek an International Monetary Fund loan.
He faces a tough task after he is sworn in on Jan. 15 and
will have to govern with little support in Congress.
The presidential palace, in the picturesque colonial
downtown under the bright skies of the Andean mountain capital
Quito, will be a big change from the military detention centre
where he was jailed for six months after the coup in 2000.
Gutierrez briefly formed part of a ruling junta before the
army installed Vice President Gustavo Noboa to rule until this
election. The Colonel says he has no regrets.
Despite initial doubts, foreign investors ended up more
comfortable with Gutierrez than Noboa, whom they associate
with populism and crony capitalism, New York analysts say.
- Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None