The Generals Opt for Democracy

Quito's junta mil bow out, but wants "extremes" avoided

It was a rare event for South America, where today elected governments rule in only two of eleven nations, Venezuela and Colombia. Under the gaze of soldiers posted to ward off violence, 1.6 million Ecuadorians went to the polls last week for the first time in eleven years to select the leaders of their small (pop. 7.5 million) Andean country. Their choice for President: Jaime Roldos Aguilera, 38, a mild-mannered populist lawyer who won by a smashing 2-to-l ratio, despite a strong right-wing effort on behalf of his conservative opponent, former Quito Mayor Sixto Duran Ballen, 58.

Ecuador's return to democracy was closely watched in Bolivia and Peru, which also plan elections to replace military juntas. For a time, it seemed the vote in Ecuador might never take place. Fearing that Roldos, a protege of Asaad Bucaram, an abrasive populist who founded the Concentration of Popular Forces Party (C.F.P.), would follow up his first-place finish in last summer's preliminary balloting with a victory, the military men who have ruled Ecuador since 1972 delayed the runoff for more than six months. That allowed the conservatives who opposed Roldos to mount a scare campaign that implied his election would turn Ecuador into a Marxist state like Salvador Allende's Chile.

The pudgy Roldos, a professor of law and former member of congress, promised that he would be "the force of change." Not a fiery speaker, his methodical rhetoric came across well on television broadcasts that played an important role in the campaign. Though married to Bucaram's niece, he distanced himself from his radical mentor by scrapping the slogan he used last summer: ROLDOS IN OFFICE, BUCARAM IN POWER. Roldos' moderate image won over the small but growing middle class. He gained the support of poor peasants and Indians (33% of the population) by pledging to include them in the modest prosperity produced by the export of oil and bananas.

Roldos avoided ruffling Ecuador's armed forces, proclaiming that he held them in "great respect." But he also decried the "vile assassination" of Abnon Calderon Munoz, leader of the gadfly Radical Front Party, who was shot last fall in Roldos' home town of Quayaquil. Calderon's family has brought suit charging that ex-Interior Minister Bolivar Jarrin Cahuenas was involved in the killing.

Roldos' victory reflected weariness with the junta, which had run into difficulty controlling corruption, inflation, budget deficits and Ecuador's foreign debt. With Washington's approval, the junta consulted with every political faction in drawing up a new constitution that will become effective on Aug. 10. One major change: literacy will be abolished as a requirement for voting, which will add as many as 1 million peasants to the electorate.

Despite the junta's apparent willingness to support a constitutional government, some of its members harbor lingering reservations. The junta says it seeks a "dialogue" with Roldos, and wants him to "clarify his political philosophy" before he takes office in August. The idea, explains Rear Admiral Victor Hugo Garces, the Interior Minister, is to help the new President "not to go to any extremes." If the dialogue does not satisfy the generals, Ecuador's return to democracy could prove turbulent.

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