More of the same, please

IN THE decade to 2006, all three men elected as president of Ecuador failed to finish their terms in office. Following a resounding victory in an election held on February 17th, it now appears that the country will have just one president for the entire subsequent decade. With over half the ballots counted, Rafael Correa, the leftist incumbent, had received nearly 57% of the vote—more than twice the total of the runner-up, and six percentage points higher than his mark from 2009. He is the first Ecuadorean president to win two consecutive elections without facing a run-off vote, and assuming he completes his second four-year term, he will amass the longest uninterrupted time in power in the country’s history.

The populist president owes his landslide most of all to high oil prices. Incomes per head in Ecuador have not grown as fast during Mr Correa’s presidency as they have in the rest of Latin America, partly because foreign investors have been alienated by his nationalist, interventionist rhetoric and decision to default on the country’s sovereign debt. However, the government took maximum political advantage of its surge in petroleum revenues by cranking up public spending. In his victory speech, Mr Correa promised to continue his “citizens’ revolution”, touting the highways, hospitals and schools his government has built.
The president’s aggressive campaigning also appears to have paid off. He has mitigated the political impact of critical media coverage by calling the press “corrupt, mercantilist…ink-wielding contract killers” intent on undermining the popular will. And taking a page from his ailing political mentor, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, he has used his presidential bully pulpit to barrage rival candidates with personal insults.
He also benefited from a series of tactical mistakes by the opposition. The vote against him was split among seven different candidates. The left-leaning electorate proved quite personally loyal to the president: Alberto Acosta, an economist formerly allied with Mr Correa, got less than 4% of the vote. Lucio Gutiérrez, a former president and the runner-up in the 2009 election, also ran on a platform similar to Mr Correa’s (albeit even more nationalist) and managed a mere 5%.
Meanwhile, Guillermo Lasso, a conservative banker who finished a distant second, focused on criticising Mr Correa’s popular economic policies. Only late in the campaign did he being attacking the president on more vulnerable points, and he said little about the high crime rate. Other opposition candidates complained that his overbearing attitude towards them prevented the centre-right from presenting a united front.
Mr Correa now appears set to enjoy almost unfettered authority. By changing the method for allocating seats in the assembly and some opportunistic gerrymandering, Mr Correa stacked the deck in favour of his Alianza País (AP) party, which in the last election fell just short of an absolute majority in the legislature. This time, it is on track to hold around 70% of the chamber, despite winning just 55% of the votes. One AP lawmaker from rural Pichincha represents just 80,000 voters, half the population of a district in more opposition-friendly northern Quito. Mr Lasso has promised to form a “loyal opposition” that will offer policy proposals and serve as a watchdog for public spending, but Mr Correa has shown little appetite for reaching across the aisle.
Given Ecuador’s generally pliant courts, the only real check on Mr Correa is the constitution he got approved in 2008, which limits the president to two four-year terms. Under current law, Mr Correa will inevitably become a lame duck as time goes on. In his victory speech, the president reassured Ecuadoreans that he had no plans to modify this rule, and called on young AP politicians to develop their own candidacies. But many Latin American leaders have made similar vows, only to break them as their remaining time in office dwindles.