What do the 2007–2008 Constituent Assembly (CA) and the 2014–2015 parliamentary debates on leadership tell us about the character of constitutional instability in contemporary Ecuador? This chapter continues the discussion of the meaning of Ecuador’s ‘lawgivers’ initiated with Gabriel García Moreno (1869). I draw on Freud’s conjecture that the guilt for the killing of the father of the primal horde returns through the fantasy of substitute Messiahs regarded as capable of delivering redemption and the promised land. The messianic leaders addressed in this chapter—the ‘substitutes’ of García Moreno as it were—are presidents Eloy Alfaro and Rafael Correa. In their own way, these leaders’ movements were sensitive to the indigenous question, a topic also discussed in the chapter. My overarching argument reads as follows. Ecuador’s history of postcolonial violence has helped forge a political culture prone to supporting messianic leaders, that is, lawgivers whose personae have come to personify the aspiration of perpetual stability found in CAs. In this light, I problematize a related conjecture: ‘messianic leadership’ can emerge as a psychosocial phenomenon triggered by the ambivalent identification with the father figure. However, for the case under analysis a theoretical and contextual nuance must be noted. That is, the apparent link between a diminished paternal imago in postcolonial Ecuador and the constant phenomenon of heroic identification in its constitutional politics. My discourse analyses of the political processes of 1906, 2007–2008, and 2014–2015 can be seen as so many ways of probing the explanatory character and scope of Freud’s myth. Alfaro was the leader of the Liberal Revolution and the 1906 constitution/lawgiver. The Citizens’ Revolution—led by Correa and inspired by Alfaro—prompted the writing of Ecuador’s latest constitution. In line with his electoral pledge, in 2007 President Correa (2007–2017) asked the people if they would support the writing of Ecuador’s 20th constitution. With the majority of the parliamentary seats, Correa’s former left-wing movement (Alianza País) crafted the 2008 charter. To address Alfaro’s and Correa’s psychosocial importance in terms of Ecuador’s ‘constitutional instability’, in this chapter I focus on those parliamentary debates where, directly or indirectly, these figures are invoked. I also examine the debates on presidential re-elections. The Citizens’ Revolution 2008 charter allows one re-election ‘only’, consecutive or not. But the ‘one re-election only’ maxim was ‘self-transgressed’ in 2014 when Alianza País proposed an amendment to the 2008 constitution. This reform abolished presidential term limits in 2015, in the hope of realizing a third presidential mandate of Ecuador’s latest messiah: Rafael Correa.

The 2007–2008 Constituent Convention and the 2015 Constitutional Amendment

章节
发表日期：

2026年

查看全文

Ernesto Espindola

摘要

What do the 2007–2008 Constituent Assembly (CA) and the 2014–2015 parliamentary debates on leadership tell us about the character of constitutional instability in contemporary Ecuador? This chapter continues the discussion of the meaning of Ecuador’s ‘lawgivers’ initiated with Gabriel García Moreno (1869). I draw on Freud’s conjecture that the guilt for the killing of the father of the primal horde returns through the fantasy of substitute Messiahs regarded as capable of delivering redemption and the promised land. The messianic leaders addressed in this chapter—the ‘substitutes’ of García Moreno as it were—are presidents Eloy Alfaro and Rafael Correa. In their own way, these leaders’ movements were sensitive to the indigenous question, a topic also discussed in the chapter. My overarching argument reads as follows. Ecuador’s history of postcolonial violence has helped forge a political culture prone to supporting messianic leaders, that is, lawgivers whose personae have come to personify the aspiration of perpetual stability found in CAs. In this light, I problematize a related conjecture: ‘messianic leadership’ can emerge as a psychosocial phenomenon triggered by the ambivalent identification with the father figure. However, for the case under analysis a theoretical and contextual nuance must be noted. That is, the apparent link between a diminished paternal imago in postcolonial Ecuador and the constant phenomenon of heroic identification in its constitutional politics. My discourse analyses of the political processes of 1906, 2007–2008, and 2014–2015 can be seen as so many ways of probing the explanatory character and scope of Freud’s myth. Alfaro was the leader of the Liberal Revolution and the 1906 constitution/lawgiver. The Citizens’ Revolution—led by Correa and inspired by Alfaro—prompted the writing of Ecuador’s latest constitution. In line with his electoral pledge, in 2007 President Correa (2007–2017) asked the people if they would support the writing of Ecuador’s 20th constitution. With the majority of the parliamentary seats, Correa’s former left-wing movement (Alianza País) crafted the 2008 charter. To address Alfaro’s and Correa’s psychosocial importance in terms of Ecuador’s ‘constitutional instability’, in this chapter I focus on those parliamentary debates where, directly or indirectly, these figures are invoked. I also examine the debates on presidential re-elections. The Citizens’ Revolution 2008 charter allows one re-election ‘only’, consecutive or not. But the ‘one re-election only’ maxim was ‘self-transgressed’ in 2014 when Alianza País proposed an amendment to the 2008 constitution. This reform abolished presidential term limits in 2015, in the hope of realizing a third presidential mandate of Ecuador’s latest messiah: Rafael Correa.