Mario Vargas Llosa: “Correa is a crab ruler”

Mario Vargas Llosa: “Rafael Correa is a crab ruler”

That was how the novelist named the president of Ecuador in the inaugural lecture of the XLVI Annual Meeting of the Latin American Federation of Banks, in which invited Ecuadorians to use “all weapons of democracy to peacefully defend free enterprise” to reject the tax reform that Correa is trying to apply in private banking.

Llosa pointed out that while some countries in the region have been growing, others “are going backwards because their efforts on keep practicing the demagogic statist ideology, interventionist and authoritarian, which has failed worldwide“.

“At the same time, in a neighboring country, a crab ruler of those who are bent on making his country go back, subtly proposes owning the banking system through measures that would make banks bent at governmental whims,” said Llosa , and warned that “if the measure succeeds, it will indirectly nationalize the entire Ecuadorian financial system” and would mean “the demise of democracy and its replacement by a populist dictatorship.”

Meanwhile, Correa responded: “We’re used to hear nonsense from Vargas Llosa.” (MZ)