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Ecuador’s Indians in the 1996 and 1998 Elections: Assessing Pachakutik’s Performance

Abstract:Ecuador has been the site of the development of one of the most successful indigenous social movements in Latin America. In 1996 leaders of the most powerful indigenous organization, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), decided to enter electoral politics via a political movement called Pachakutik. This article analyzes electoral outcomes for Pachakutik in two national elections, 1996 and 1998, with an emphasis on the ability of that movement to mobilize voter support amongst its core constituency, Ecuador’s Indians. Part of the analysis relies on an application of Gary King’s Ecological Inference method, which supports results found at the aggregate (cantón or canton) level. While the results indicate that indigenous voters did indeed more often support Pachakutik candidates than did non-indigenous voters, it is also clear that a majority of the indigenous voters did not mark ballots for Pachakutik but instead voted for other candidates or wasted their votes by leaving them blank or nullifying them. Possible reasons for the difficulties in mobilizing greater voter support are discussed in the context of the surprising electoral victory in 2002 of the Pachakutik-supported presidential candidate, Lucio Gutiérrez.