Crisis Accentuated Weaknesses in Ecuador’s Democratic System

South America’s civilian leaders breathed a sigh of relief last week after the elected president of Ecuador survived an abduction by air force paratroopers and an impeachment attempt by congressmen.

But many Ecuadoreans and foreigners say the crisis, rooted in intense personal rivalries as well as ideology, weakens the democratic institutions that re-emerged here in 1979 after seven years of military dictatorship.

It also dramatized the lingering power of the military in Ecuador and elsewhere on the continent, where five other nations--Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil--have returned to civilian rule since 1980.

Authority Weakened

Last year, the military in Uruguay moved to block trials of army and police officers for crimes such as murder and torture during the dictatorship there. And in Peru, coup rumors abounded after the president denounced the massacre of prisoners by security forces putting down prison riots.

Here in Ecuador, President Leon Febres Cordero appears to have weakened his own authority by ordering the release of a jailed air force general in exchange for his own release. The military high command remained loyal to the president, but in doing so, it threatened to step in to halt a constitutional move toward impeachment.

“It is probably in Ecuador where democracy is under the greatest challenge in our hemisphere at the moment,” said U.S. Ambassador Fernando E. Rondon, who worries whether the country can get to its scheduled presidential election next January.

Ecuador passed a crucial test in 1984 when Febres Cordero succeeded another elected president. But bitter antagonism between him and Congress, fed by the collapse of the nation’s oil-based economy, has spilled over into the armed forces.

Pugnacious Conservative

Febres Cordero, 55, is a pugnacious conservative who packs a Colt .45 pistol and colors his oratory with unprintable insults. President Reagan once hailed him as a model Third World leader. The coalition of six Marxist and centrist parties in control of Congress calls him a dictator.

Among other things, they have feuded over who has power to name judges. When Congress appointed 18 new justices, Febres Cordero ordered army tanks to surround the Supreme Court building and kept them from taking their seats.

Last March, the air force commander, Gen. Frank Vargas Pazzos, rebelled and demanded the ouster of the defense minister and the army commander, charging them with corruption in the purchase of an aircraft.

The army put down the revolt and arrested Vargas, but he was quickly embraced by the civilian left as the only man with enough machismo to stand up to the president. In September, Congress granted him amnesty. Febres Cordero refused to sign it.

Amnesty Promised

On Jan. 17, air force paratroopers loyal to Vargas seized Febres Cordero and 30 other hostages at a ceremony at the Taura Air Base near Guayaquil, killing two presidential bodyguards.

The 12-hour revolt ended when the president promised amnesty for the rebels and ordered Gen. Vargas freed, but he was quickly overruled by the military high command.

Within days, a military court ordered Vargas jailed again. Seventy-four airmen were arrested by the army during gym class at the tropical Taura base and flown in their shorts to a barracks near this chilly Andean capital.

Then, as Congress met early last week to condemn the president, for behavior that allegedly led to his abduction, the armed forces high command issued a pronouncement aimed at limiting the debate.

Warnings Given

It warned congressmen favoring impeachment against “using these ghastly circumstances to judge the acts of those who were offended” at the Taura base “instead of those who executed the attacks.”

To emphasize the point, Defense Minister Medardo Salazar Navas, a retired army general, went to the home of the president of Congress, Andres Vallejo, and told him to “watch it,” according to two senior government officials.

Aware of the implied risk, Congress passed only a non-binding resolution calling for the president’s resignation, which was ignored, and adjourned late last week without calling a formal impeachment trial.

“The armed forces are not about to let Congress destabilize the president, even if it is by constitutional means,” said one official close to Febres Cordero. “Was it constitutional to vote an amnesty for a general who tried to overthrow the constitutional government?”

Courting the Military

Febres Cordero has been carefully courting the military since the revolt last March. Several top commanders of the army, navy and air force were seized with him at Taura, and Western diplomats believe that ordeal cemented their loyalty.

However, Vargas said in an interview from hiding last week that the president’s standing with senior commanders is “very delicate.” He said they feel “subordinated beyond their normal mission, to carry out the interests of a president who is destroying peace and democracy.”

The two men have been sparring since Febres Cordero became suspicious of plotting and had Gen. Vargas cashiered last March. The president has called him a traitor and questioned his manhood in public.

This has pushed the 51-year-old Vargas, who still commands loyalty among junior air force officers, into an alliance with the center-left coalition led by former President Osvaldo Hurtado, a Christian Democrat waging his own personal feud against Febres Cordero.

‘Trying to Destroy Each Other’

For months Hurtado has been calling for impeachment of the quick-tempered president for creating “a culture of violence” in this relatively peaceful Andean nation.

Commenting on the air force rebellion, he asked: “How are we going to stop using arms to solve conflicts if my successor appears on television on horseback, drawing his pistol?”

Government officials have suggested that Hurtado and other opposition leaders were behind the revolt. While publicly condemning it, the opposition did urge Vice President Blasco M. Penaherrera, without success, to assume the presidency and to refuse to deal with Febres Cordero’s captors.

“Both sides are trying to destroy each other and the democratic system,” said Angel Duarte, an independent center-left congressman. “I cannot recall such a hateful mood, even when the military was in power.”

South America’s civilian presidents, aware that a coup here could affect democracy elsewhere, jumped to defend Febres Cordero.

Indifference to Democracy

Venezuelan President Jaime Lusinchi went so far as to warn both the government and Congress here against “precipitous action that could lead to no good.”

Part of the problem, according to some Ecuadoreans, is an indifference to democratic ways among many of the country’s 8.5 million people, most of whom are Indian peasant farmers.

“Our democratic roots are shallow, perhaps because military rule has not been as oppressive as in Argentina or Uruguay,” a prominent banker said. “People here are not as afraid of the military.”

While street demonstrations for and against the president last week drew no more than a few hundred people, radio stations estimated that 3 million Ecuadoreans tuned in to live broadcasts of the congressional debate, which were also transmitted to neighboring countries.

They heard lawmakers hurl expletives at the president and each other for 14 hours. One night, two congressmen stalked out to trade punches but were pulled apart by security guards.

Febres Cordero said the session was proof of his “extreme respect” for the constitution and free speech.

‘Banana Republic of Savages’

But Rodrigo Padilla, a 30-year-old physical education teacher, said he was ashamed of what he was hearing on his car radio.

“The world thinks this is a banana republic of savages who cannot govern themselves,” he said.

Other Ecuadoreans who were polled in the street said they wished that the president and Congress would stop fighting and work to pull the economy out of a recession.

Oil income dropped to $950 million last year, from $1.9 billion the year before, shrinking per-capita income by 1.5%, raising unemployment and undermining Febres Cordero’s considerable popularity.

The recent crisis could not have come at a worse time for economic planners. The day the president was kidnaped, the planners were in New York to ask creditor banks for a postponement of principal payments and a reduction of interest on Ecuador’s $8.8-billion foreign debt.

The meeting was postponed, and Vice President Penaherrera said later that the banks were now demanding a 1% increase in interest payments to compensate for the higher “political risk” of lending to Ecuador.