Nov. 24, 2002

Ecuadorian voters elected Lucio Gutiérrez, an army colonel who helped overthrow two previous governments, president in a second-round runoff vote against banana-export magnate Álvaro Noboa. Leader of the “Partido Sociedad Patriótica 21 de Enero” party and allied with the Indigenous Pachakutik and populist revolutionary party Movimineto Popular Democrático, Gutiérrez ran on a reform and anti-corruption platform amid an ongoing political crisis that has seen the collapse of the South American nation’s financial system and dollarization of the economy.

Cover photograph: Radio La Calle