{"id":410743,"date":"2010-03-10T06:07:26","date_gmt":"2010-03-10T11:07:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalvoicesonline.org\/?p=126826"},"modified":"2010-03-10T06:07:26","modified_gmt":"2010-03-10T11:07:26","slug":"ecuador-guayaquil-demands-greater-budget-allocation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/410743","title":{"rendered":"Ecuador: Guayaquil Demands Greater Budget Allocation"},"content":{"rendered":"

February was a politically tense month in Ecuador, as gatherings in Quito and Guayaquil<\/a> were organized by the opposition to President Rafael Correa's government. Perhaps the one which had the greatest visibility was the “March for Dignity” held on February 11, 2010, which was organized by the Guayaquil Municipal government [es]<\/a> and headed by its mayor and former presidential candidate Jaime Nebot<\/a>. The organizers say that the march's main purpose was to protest the amount of money allocated to the city's budget, however, others believe that the march was more political in nature.<\/p>\n

During his speech at protest, Nebot compared the per capita allocation that Guayaquil receives with that of other Ecuadorian cities. According to Nebot, each resident in Guayaquil receives US$0.75 and residents of other cities receive up to US$508 [es]<\/a>. He added that even though most other cities will receive an increase in their 2011 budgets from the central government, Guayaquil's budget will decrease.<\/p>\n

\"Nebot's<\/p>\n

Nebot's administrative headquarters – Guayaquil City Hall. Picture by Flickr user Roofwalker and used under a Creative Commons license.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The government has defended its budget allocation indicating that Nebot's numbers are incorrect. This, in turn, began a war of words between Nebot and Finance Minister Mar\u00eda Elsa Viteri, as well as with Fernando Cordero Cueva, President of the Legislative Assembly, who was called a “liar” by Nebot<\/a>. It went as far as the Municipal government of Guayaquil declared Cordero persona non grata.<\/a><\/p>\n

The campaign is continuing with slogans such as “Funds to Guayaquil” and “Defense of its Model of Development,” and various other local demands. However, there are some who see this campaign as propaganda, and that Mayor Nebot only wants increased political power. This tension can be seen in the blog of Rafael Mendez Meneses, who lives in the community of Naranjal about an hour from Guayaquil, and published a fictional conversation between a protest supporter and a protest opponent [es].<\/a> Here he attempts to debunk some of the rhetoric used by Nebot and his supporters about their reasons for the march. In addition, Mendez criticizes the fact that local government employees are granted a day off from work to attend the march.<\/p>\n

This video<\/a> produced by YouTube user mehagopipinebot says that they will not attend the march and asks why does Nebot want more money for the municipality? By placing photos of nice public parks and tourist attraction next to neglected areas of the city, they make the argument that Nebot has not attended to the needs of residents.<\/p>\n

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The recent march also gave increased political visibility to Nebot, who has emerged as one of the most recognizable of opposition leaders. However, he is criticized by blogger Xavier Flores Aguirre, who writes that Nebot lacks credibility<\/a> and that it benefits the central government having an opposition figure as incompetent as Nebot:<\/p>\n

\n

Al final, la revoluci\u00f3n ciudadana tiene el opositor ideal: territorialmente limitado, sin propuestas nacionales y sin horizonte pol\u00edtico\u201d. Corolario: Nebot est\u00e1 encerrado en un caj\u00f3n con vista al Guayas (un caj\u00f3n, al que se le colocar\u00e1n en alg\u00fan momento cirios para que sea lo que est\u00e1 destinado a ser: el ata\u00fad para el \u00faltimo dinosaurio de la llamada partidocracia). Corolario2: la oposici\u00f3n (no me refiero, en este punto, necesariamente al Alcalde Nebot, sino a los pol\u00edticos \u2013o pol\u00edticos wanna be- que depositan en \u00e9l sus expectativas) es la mejor aliada del Gobierno central. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nUltimately, the citizen's revolution (Correa's government) has the ideal opponent: territorially limited, without national proposals and no political horizon. Corollary: Nebot is enclosed in a box overlooking the Guayas river (a box, where candles will placed at any time for whatever it is destined to be: the coffin for the last dinosaur called particracy). Corollary2: The opposition (I do not mean, at this point, Mayor Nebot necessarily, but politicians-or wannabe politicians who had placed expectations on him), is the best ally of the central government.<\/div>\n

One blogger who believes that Nebot has a case for defending his city, and thinks that he should be more firm is El Libertario,<\/a> a Quito-based blogger. He writes that in terms of business, these resources must be better managed and its own revenues used more efficiently:<\/p>\n

\n

En vez de estar mendigando m\u00e1s rentas al gobierno central, Nebot deber\u00eda plantarse duro para que los impuestos cobrados a sus conciudadanos se queden en su ciudad o a\u00fan mejor en los bolsillos de los propios guayaquile\u00f1os para que ellos los destinen de forma voluntaria a mejorar su ciudad; eso si har\u00eda una verdadera diferencia. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Instead of begging more revenues from the central government, Nebot should stand tough so that the taxes collected from its citizens stay in his city or even better, in the pockets of Guayaquil\u2019s people so they can voluntarily improve their city; that would make a real difference.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

February was a politically tense month in Ecuador, as gatherings in Quito and Guayaquil were organized by the opposition to President Rafael Correa's government. Perhaps the one which had the greatest visibility was the “March for Dignity” held on February 11, 2010, which was organized by the Guayaquil Municipal government [es] and headed by its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5739,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-410743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5739"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}