Lenin Moreno. Carlos Rodríguez/ANDES. Algunos derechos reservados.
This may have been the first time since the nineteen twenties that the presidency of Ecuador has changed hands within the same party, and that in itself is something, but I doubt anyone has ever seen anything like the spectacle that was mounted for the handing over of power by Rafael Correa to Lenin Moreno.
A theatrical apotheosis, would be one way to describe the show, but not of the incoming head of state but the outgoing, one Rafael Correa: celebrated with fireworks, choirs, and a large number of testimonies as to his greatness. There is no doubt that, as politicians go, he was one of the most effective this country has ever seen. On the other hand, all except the most biased would have to admit that he had his dark side. But saint or sinner, the whole display was a bit much, a confirmation perhaps of Mario Vargas Llosa’s theory of the ‘civilization of spectacle’.
