Progress after a Coup

When he donned Ecuador's presidential sash in November 1961. Carlos Julio Arosemena's chances of wearing it long seemed woefully slim. Of his country's last 20 Presidents, only three served full terms. He himself was the playboy offspring of a rich Guayaquil banker, and rode into the vice-presidency in 1960 on the coattails of President Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra. He got the top job after Velasco Ibarra proved powerless to curb runaway inflation and left-led strikes, and was turned out by the military. Once in office, Arosemena baffled his countrymen by his politics, and his personal habits became the talk of the nation. Yet after 16 months, he is still President, and Ecuador is better off than before.

The Leader of the Band. No one can be quite sure where Arosemena stands between left and right. Taking office, he spoke earnestly of his love of democracy, but refused to join other hemisphere nations in condemning Fidel Castro. Not until the military threatened him with the same fate as Velasco Ibarra did he agree to sever relations with Cuba.

But the greatest doubts about Ecuador's President arose because of his well-documented reputation as a binge drinker who at times embarrassed his nation. At first, occasional two-or three-day toots drew little attention. Then during his state visit to the U.S. last year, Arosemena managed to show up wobbly at a private chat with President Kennedy. Some months later, when Chile's dignified, austere President Jorge Alessandri visited Ecuador, Arosemena nearly collapsed as he tried to give his guest the traditional abrazo at the airport, then insisted on conducting the brass band. At cocktails, Arosemena saw that Alessandri's champagne glass stood untouched, plucked the goblet from beneath his guest's nose and guzzled it down.

Because of such incidents. Arosemena's Conservative Party opposition in Congress twice tried to vote him out of office. In his New Year's message. Arosemena himself referred to his personal problems: "Those who pretend to ignore that the human being is complex--shadow and light, angel and devil--are, in Biblical terms, money changers in the temple." And lately he seems to have, curbed his penchant for Scotch.

The fact is that Arosemena sober has done a surprisingly good job with Ecuador's backward economy. One-third of the country's 4.7 million people are Indians living under conditions little better than their Inca ancestors; the average per cap ita annual income for all Ecuadorians is just $167. From 1956 through 1961, the country's gross national product inched ahead at a painfully slow 1% a year. During the Arosemena administration, it jumped to 2.5%, still less than the annual population increase of 2.8%, but at least a move in the right direction. Banana ex ports last year reached a record high of 34.5 million stems, and, thanks partly to Arosemena's austerity program, unfavorable balances of trade in 1960 and 1961 were reversed: 1962 exports climbed to $136.6 million; imports fell to $97.8 million. International monetary reserves, which had slipped to a risky $12.5 mil lion in 1961, are now back to $30 million.

Calling the Tune. With a $5,000,000 Alianza credit, Arosemena's government is underwriting an industry-luring program that includes tax exemptions. During the last month, more than 20 small foreign companies got approval of their plans to invest in Ecuador. The government passed a more equitable income tax law, and hopes to eliminate a welter of other tax laws that permit Congress to allot 48% of total federal revenues to "autonomous agencies" such as the Red Cross, universities, private schools and sports clubs. The government is moving ahead with a program to push roads into lush but unused lands near the coast, educating farmers from the Andean highlands to grow cotton, rice, sugar and coffee, and providing them with development credits.

An Ecuadorian saying is "You must play politics like a violin: pick it up with your left hand and play it with your right." Many believe that Arosemena is mastering himself as well as the political fiddle, and the odds are improving that he may even make it through to the 1964 elections. Once curbed by Arosemena, the far left turned out to be a remarkably shallow and ineffectual clique; the army, said Conservative Party Leader Francisco Salazar, "has no strong leader, and it doesn't want to get mixed up in politics." And even those most disillusioned with Arosemena's personal shortcomings are not anxious to overturn him.

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