ABSTRACT
Declining petroleum prices and the rising burden of debt service payments in the 1980s weakened the state relative to the early years of the petroleum boom. Ecuadorian economic elites, whose access to the formulation of public policy was highly circumscribed during the boom years, were able to take advantage of the relative weakness of the state to elect their own candidate as president of the country in 1984. The 1984 elections appeared to set the stage for a showdown between the new center-left parties and a resurgent right. With the deaths of Velasco Ibarra and Assad Bucaram, traditional populist parties had lost much of their electoral appeal; no similarly charismatic leaders had yet emerged to capture the populist vote. The leftist parties, too, were highly fragmented and without significant support among voters. Once installed in office, Febres Cordero lost no time beginning to implement policies that would restructure the Ecuadorian economy along free-market lines.
