Rodrigo Borja Cevallos
Rodrigo Borja Cevallos ( born June 19, 1935 in Quito ) is an Ecuadorian politician, lawyer and university professor. He was 1988-1992 President of the Republic of Ecuador and is currently Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations.
Borja initially studied political and social sciences at the Universidad Central del Ecuador ( UCE). He graduated in 1958 and received his doctorate in law in 1960. During his studies he worked for Radio HCJB and the newspaper El Comercio. He later worked as a lawyer and a professor of constitutional law and is the author of State and constitutional reference books.
He was elected in 1962 for the Liberal Party ( Partido Liberal ) in the National Congress, which was, however, already been resolved in the following year after a military coup led by Ramón Castro Jijón. Borja in 1966 was appointed to the Commission of jurists who should advise a newly convened Constituent Assembly. 1967, a group of young lawyers split off by Borja from the Liberal Party to form a non-Marxist left-wing party, the 1969/70 upscale from the baptism Democratic Left ( Izquierda Democrática ), whose chairman was Borja. 1970 and 1979 he was elected to the National Congress once again for his new party. However, the Congress elected in 1970 did not meet due to a new military coup.
1978 and 1983 ran Borja as presidential candidate of his party. In 1978, he failed with 12 percent of the vote as the fourth on the first ballot. In 1983 he was defeated in the runoff later president León Febres Cordero, who received 51.1 percent of the vote, although Borjas victory was previously considered likely. In the third attempt, he was victorious in the presidential elections of 31 January and in the runoff of Abdala Bucaram to May 8, 1988. Borja took office on 10 August 1988. Than almost any president after him, he was able to govern with a stable parliamentary majority. His term lasted until 10 August 1992 when the newly elected President Sixto Durán Ballén over took office.
He came again in the presidential elections of 1998 and 2002. In 1998 he finished second in the first round with 15.7 percent of the vote for third place behind eventual President Jamil Mahuad and Noboa Álvaro. In 2002, he finished with 14.1 percent of the vote in the first round in fourth place behind the eventual President Lucio Gutiérrez, Álvaro Noboa and León Roldós.
In 2004, he declared his retirement from national politics and also resigned as chairman of the Izquierda Democrática. On 9 May 2007, he declared himself to take over the Office of the Secretary-General the establishment of any international organization Union of South American Nations ( Unasur ) based in the Mitad del Mundo in Quito ready, but refrained because of his view at low powers shortly before formal establishment of the organization on the Office.