Gustavo Noboa

Gustavo Noboa, 2018

Gustavo Noboa Bejarano (born August 21, 1937 in Guayaquil ) is a university professor (lawyer) and conservative politician . He was President of Ecuador from January 22, 2000 to January 15, 2003 .

Origin and education

Noboa comes from Guayaquil and one of his ancestors is the ex-presidents Diego Noboa y Arteta . He graduated from the Universidad Católica de Guayaquil with a degree in social and political sciences in 1962 and received his doctorate in law in 1965 . He started teaching at the same university and also taught at his former school, where Abdalá Bucaram was one of his students. He was dean and vice dean of the Faculty of Law several times. a. for a while as Vice Dean under the then Dean and later President Jaime Roldós (1979–81). In addition, he led Catholic youth groups. Since he was a student, he worked as a secretary for the Sociedad Agrícola e Industrial San Carlos , which belonged to the richest man in Ecuador at the time, Juan Xavier Marcos , and was managed by Agustín Febres Cordero Tyler, the father of the later President León Febres Cordero . He also later worked as a lawyer for the company, especially in collective bargaining, and its owner.

Political and university career

Roldós' successor Osvaldo Hurtado appointed him governor of the Guayas province in 1981 . When León Febres Cordero was elected president of Ecuador in 1984 after a polemical election campaign in which Febres Cordero made himself known as a strong political opponent of Hurtado, Noboa's time as governor ended.

From 1986 to 1996 he was rector of the Universidad Católica. In addition to his teaching activities, he was also active in the private sector and in the context of diplomatic missions.

Vice President and President

Noboa was elected vice-president in 1999 as a non-party in tandem with Jamil Mahuad ( Democracia Popular ). On January 21, 2000, indigenous associations ( CONAIE ) and middle-ranking armed forces compelled protests against the policies of Mahuad, in particular against the abolition of the sucre and the introduction of the US dollar as the national currency ( dollarization ) and cuts in social policy thus connected coup Mahuad to leave the presidential palace. First, a junta for national rescue , consisting of Colonel Lucio Gutiérrez , CONAIE President Antonio Vargas and lawyer Carlos Solórzano took power. However, the leadership of the Ecuadorian military managed to dissolve this junta. On January 22nd, 87 out of 96 members of the Ecuadorian National Congress voted in favor of the dismissal of Mahuad for abandoning his office and the installation of Noboa as president.

Noboa essentially continued the policies of Mahua and maintained dollarization. He signed the contracts to build the Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados (OCP) oil pipeline and renegotiated the country's external debt after the Mahuad government had previously unilaterally frozen government bonds ( Brady Bonds ) worth $ 400 million. The military coup d'état on January 21 was given amnesty in the course of 2000. One of them, Lucio Gutiérrez , won the presidential elections in late 2002 and became Noboa's successor on January 15, 2003.

After the presidency

About three months after his term ended, Noboa was charged with misappropriating government funds as part of the foreign debt renegotiation. The indictment went back to ex-President León Febres Cordero , an old political opponent of Noboa. Noboa then fled to the Dominican Republic , where he applied for political asylum . In April 2005, he returned to Ecuador after Gutiérrez's (unconstitutional) newly appointed Supreme Court under Guillermo Castro dropped the charges. During protests against Lucio Gutiérrez, which led to his removal on April 20, the Supreme Court was also dissolved by him. Under the new president Alfredo Palacio , Castro's decision was overturned and Noboa was placed under house arrest. Since the Supreme Court remained vacant until the end of November 2005, the proceedings against Noboa were also suspended and subsequently resumed. In March 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that Noboa was not to be prosecuted as a perpetrator, but only as a beneficiary ( encubridor ). The arrest warrant and house arrest were lifted. After the affiliation process initially continued, the Constituent Assembly granted Noboa a comprehensive amnesty on July 4, 2008.

Web links

• http://www.cidob.org/bios/castellano/lideres/n-018.htm - Noboa's biography (CIDOB, span.)
• http://www.noboafrenteaunainfamia.com/ - Noboa's protest website against the allegations and his house arrest (polemical, Spanish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Amnistía a Noboa y 3 ex Gerentes de AGD pasó entre polémica , El Universo , 5th July 2008 (Spanish).