Briefings & Intelligence

18-06-2015: Latin American Weekly Report

  • LatinNews

Ecuador’s Correa feels the heat over inheritance tax

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa has challenged the political opposition to call a recall referendum on his mandate after more than a week of protests rather than resort to violence to oust him. This is a stock response from Correa: raise the stakes; categorise legitimate protests as a cover for a coup conspiracy; and divert attention away from one specific issue of discord to his whole record in government. Correa was sufficiently concerned, however, to suspend temporarily the issue which provided the catalyst for the protests: a bill to introduce a graded inheritance tax.

“I really hope that one day they dare to go for a [recall] referendum...to beat them again at the polls,” President Correa said in a public address from the balcony of the Carondelet presidential palace on 15 June upon his return from Europe where he attended the European Union-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (EU-Celac) summit in Brussels and the Expo 2015 in Milan. Correa insisted that his proposed tax reform was designed to spread social justice and that he would not cave in to the pressure of “foolish and irresponsible people...promoting violence and looking for deaths...and intent on promoting another 30-S”, a reference to the police mutiny on 30 September 2010 which saw Correa briefly holed up in a military hospital in Quito before being rescued by special forces, which he classifies as a coup attempt.

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  • Laura Trajber Waisbich
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