José María Velasco Ibarra

José María Velasco Ibarra.

José María Velasco Ibarra.

José María Velasco Ibarra (born March 19, 1893 in Quito , † March 30, 1979 ibid) was five-time President of Ecuador . He is considered to be the dominant politician in the country in the 20th century.

Velasco Ibarra graduated from school in Quito, studied in Europe at the Sorbonne, among others, and then started his political career in the Ecuadorian administration.

For 12 years he wrote a column under the pseudonym " Labriolle " in Quito's largest daily newspaper, El Comercio . He turned against the corrupt politics of his home country and denounced election fraud . As a member of the Liberals , he was first elected to Congress in the 1930s , where he demonstrated his political backbone: in 1932 he refused to support the dismissal of the conservative election winner Neptalí Bonifaz , in 1934 he drove his liberal party comrade Juan de Dios Martínez Mera , who was accused was to have won the presidency through electoral fraud, out of office.

Velasco Ibarra won the election in 1934, supported by the Liberals and Conservatives, and tried to reform the oligarchic structures. Because of opposition from Congress, he tried to rule as a dictator , but was overthrown after eleven months and had to go into exile .

In 1940 Velasco Ibarra ran for elections, but lost due to electoral fraud and went into exile again. While Ecuador suffered territorial losses after a Peruvian invasion , the people remembered the politician commonly referred to as " the great absentee ". On May 28, 1944, a popular uprising led to the overthrow of President Carlos Alberto Arroyo del Río , three days later the returned Velasco Ibarro was appointed president. His second reign ended with a coup d'état by Defense Minister Carlos Mancheno Cajas .

When political stability returned in 1952, Velasco Ibarra won the election again, this time against liberal and conservative candidates. He fulfilled his third term in full, but the constitution forbade immediate re-election and so he had to hand over power to the conservative Camilo Ponce Enríquez in 1956 , who did everything in his power to prevent re-election, which was possible again in 1960.

Still, Velasco Ibarra won the elections with a veritable landslide victory. At the beginning of his fourth term in office, he had the support of the left , which he lost, however, as he was adamant about Castro's Cuba . The long-established parties (liberals and conservatives) took advantage of this tension, and on December 7, 1961 there was a coup which resulted in a military junta taking power.

In 1968, after numerous interim governments, Velasco Ibarra won the elections again. However, as in his first term in office, the Congress, which was dominated by its political opponents, blocked necessary reforms. In 1970, at the urging of the army , he therefore took over all powers, dissolved Congress and ruled authoritarian . After a failed coup attempt, Velasco Ibarra increasingly became a tool of the military, which finally overthrew him in 1972.

Velasco Ibarra spent the last years of his life in exile in Argentina before he returned to Quito in the spring of 1979, already seriously ill, for the funeral of his wife, where he died on March 30, 1979 at the age of 86.

evaluation

Velasco Ibarra's electoral successes were based on his understanding of the needs of the people and the country. During his last term of office, oil production began in Ecuador, with which the cocoa crisis could be overcome. His economic and social reforms undoubtedly led to an improvement in the social structure of the country, and his bipartisan demeanor made it possible to weaken the old oligarchies. Ultimately, its failure is due to diplomatic weaknesses in dealing with the political camps of Ecuador.

Awards (selection)

• 1954: Special level of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Web links

Commons : José María Velasco Ibarra  - Collection of images

• Literature by and about José María Velasco Ibarra in the catalog of the Ibero-American Institute of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin

predecessor	Office	successor
Abelardo Montalvo	President of Ecuador 1934 - 1935	Antonio Pons
Julio Teodoro Salem	President of Ecuador 1944 - 1947	Carlos Mancheno Cajas
Galo Plaza Lasso	President of Ecuador 1952 - 1956	Camilo Ponce Enríquez
Camilo Ponce Enríquez	President of Ecuador 1960 - 1961	Carlos Julio Arosemena Monroy
Otto Arosemena Gomez	President of Ecuador 1968 - 1972	Guillermo Rodríguez Lara