Camilo Ponce Enríquez

Camilo Ponce Enríquez (born January 1, 1912 in Quito , † September 15, 1976 ibid) was an Ecuadorian politician. From 1956 to 1960 he was president of his country. He was the central figure in the founding of one of the most important parties in the country, the Social Christian Party of Ecuador .

Origin and education

Ponce came from the upper middle class in the capital Quito. His paternal grandfather, Camilo Ponce Ortiz (1829-1900), was the Interior Minister of Ecuador (1868), Chairman of the Ecuadorian Senate (1887) and two-time defeated Presidential candidate of the Conservative Party (1887, 1892). Ponce Enríquez attended a Jesuit college and then studied at the Universidad Central del Ecuador , where he received his doctorate in law in 1936. In the early 1940s he undertook in-depth studies in Santiago de Chile . He also earned an additional law doctorate from the University of Southern California .

Political career 1939–1956

In the 1940s it gained attention in national politics. In 1939 he co-founded the Frente Nacional (German National Front), which campaigned for free elections and for José María Velasco Ibarra . As a member of the Allianza Democrática Ecuatoriana (Eng. "Ecuadorian Democratic Alliance") he took part in the overthrow of President Carlos Alberto Arroyo del Río , who went down in the history of Ecuador as the Democratic People's Revolution and initiated the second (transitional) presidency of José María Velasco Ibarra and led to free elections. Under Velasco, Ponce was Ecuador's Foreign Minister from 1944 to 1945 .

In 1945 he founded his first party, the Partido Demócrata Nacional (German: "National Democratic Party") and as its organ the newspaper El Heraldo (German: "The Messenger"). Later he was to found other newspapers as organs of his political associations and parties and as a result of bans on his existing periodicals.

Ponce became a member and vice-president of the Constituent Assembly in 1946. During the brief presidency of Mariano Suárez Veintimilla in September 1947, he was Minister of Public Works.

After his national democratic party had only been short-lived, Ponce founded a new party together with other young representatives of the upper class of Quito in 1951, the Movimiento Social Cristiano , which as Partido Social Cristiano (German Social Christian Party ) is one of the most influential parties in the country today is.

During most of Velasco Ibarra's third presidency (1952-1956) he was Minister of the Interior or Government.

Presidency 1956–1960

As the top candidate of an alliance of conservative parties, also supported by Velasco, Ponce was surprisingly elected president in 1956, following his time as interior minister, as the first conservative in 64 years. 29 percent of the votes were enough for him to prevail with a relative majority against his opponents, especially the liberal main candidate Raúl Clemente Huerta, who received just under 3,000 votes less than Ponce, and the populist Carlos Guevara ( CFP ).

Although his opponents initially feared a return to Gabriel García Moreno's clerical-conservative dictatorial style of government , Ponce ruled extremely moderately. In retrospect, his term of office was even described by some as the “best liberal government in the 20th century” (Jorge Salvador Lara), which expresses the fact that he hardly made any classically conservative politics. This was also due to his narrow election victory and the strong opposition in parliament.

His presidency is remembered above all for the enormous public construction activity, which also served as preparation for the 11th Pan-American Conference , which was ultimately canceled . Among other things, a modern commercial port was built in the most important port city of Guayaquil south of the old port embankment, along with the Guayaquil airport and the Estadio Modelo sports stadium . The bridge of the National Unity , which was built later and which connects Guayaquil with Durán and thus with the road link to Quito, did not get beyond the planning phase . In Quito, a new parliament building, a new airport terminal and student dormitories were built, and the Carondelet Palace presidential residence , the foreign ministry and the chapter house of the Augustinian convent were renovated. Roads, bridges, schools, and military buildings were built across the country.

With these construction works, which were carried out with exceptional efficiency compared to previous governments and were generally regarded as evidence of successful government activity, Ponce circumvented a necessary fundamental reform of the social structures of the country. There was no agricultural reform in the Andean highlands, and in terms of economic policy the government reacted only hesitantly to the economic crisis that was looming after the banana boom had weakened .

There was a serious government crisis in May and June 1959, when there were first public protests in Portoviejo , during which a naval captain was lynched after a recruit had committed suicide due to mistreatment for which he was responsible. The unrest was put down by the military , but it sparked student protests in Guayaquil, which were also bloodily suppressed in early June, severely reducing the government's reputation.

Renewed candidacies and withdrawal from politics

Ponce ran again in the 1960 elections, but was defeated by Velasco Ibarra, who had turned from his supporter to his opponent during the presidency and soon assumed his fourth presidency. After his defeat, Ponce traveled to Europe. When Velasco Ibarra was deposed by the military in 1963, Ponce actively opposed the resulting military dictatorship . Together with the ex-presidents Galo Plaza Lasso and Isidro Ayora , he supported the appointment of Clemente Yerovi as transitional president after the military dictatorship. In 1968 he ran again for president himself, but received only the third most votes behind Velasco Ibarra and Andrés Córdova (CFP). After his renewed defeat against Velasco Ibarra, Ponce withdrew from politics. When Velasco's fifth presidency turned into a “civilian dictatorship” in 1970, he turned against it as well as against the subsequent military dictatorship under Rodríguez Lara .

He died in Quito in 1976. He was married and had five children. His son Camilo Enrique Ponce Gangotena was chairman of the Partido Social Cristiano in the 1980s.

In the province of Azuay , a city and its canton are named after him.

Honors

• 1958: Special level of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• The Catamayo airport in the province of Loja was originally called Camilo Ponce Enríquez

literature

• Camilo Ponce Enriquez , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 45/1976 of October 25, 1976, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of the article freely available)

Web links

• Article in Efrén Avilés Pino: Diccionario del Ecuador , Guayaquil, Filanbanco, undated, on the homepage of the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry
• Humberto Oña Villarreal: Short biography (Spanish)
• Simón Espinosa Cordero: Short biography (Spanish)

predecessor	Office	successor
José María Velasco Ibarra	President of Ecuador 1956–1960	José María Velasco Ibarra