Hegemonic Tie and Defeat in Overtime. On the Roots of the odd Correa-Moreno Transition in Ecuador
by Samuele Mazzolini
pp. 212-233 Issue 18 (9,2) – July-December 2022 ISSN (online): 2539/2239 ISSN (print): 2389-8232 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14718/SoftPower.2022.9.2.11
Abstract
The political turn of Lenín Moreno, heir apparent of the previous Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, was an unexpected political event. However, this change of direction did not take place in a vacuum. Based on Portantiero’s concept of “hegemonic tie”, the text argues that, after multiple electoral successes, a certain levelling between the correísta bloc and its socio-political adversaries acted as a backdrop for this odd transition. In particular, the political impasse occurred thanks both to the inability of correísmo to play a leading role in society and to the recovered activism on the part of the Ecuadorian right, favoured by its structural advantages. Finally, the Citizens’ Revolution proved incapable of disputing a war of positions and of a capillary reform of the country’s common sense, which facilitated Moreno’s tricky change of shirt, thus paving the way back to neoliberalism.