The Suffocating Presence of Emeritus Leaders: Leadership Transitions in Populist Leftist Parties in Bolivia and Ecuador

Bolivian masismo/evismo and Ecuadorean correismo have been prime examples of the Latin American ‘Pink Tide’ in its populist version. Evo Morales and Rafael Correa, as indisputable leaders (and, in the case of Correa, also founder) of the MAS-IPSP and PAIS parties respectively, have repeatedly won presidential elections and dramatically altered the political scenario of their countries. Both Morales and Correa were finally forced by different political vicissitudes to indicate successors (Luís Arce and Lenín Moreno, respectively) who, in the short-medium term, entered in collision in terms of ideological orientation and policy decisions. A phase of harsh conflicts within ruling populist leftist movements – once apparently united – was thus inaugurated within both parties, although to different degrees and with different consequences. This paper focuses on the leadership successions within masismo and correismo to explore which factors contributed to make such successions particularly critical. Two sets of factors seem crucial. The first set of factors concerns considerations on much-needed processes of political and ideological renovation to face internal (e.g., erosion of electoral support due to sclerotized permanence in power) and external (e.g. different economic conjuncture) challenges. The second set of factors concerns intra-organizational challenges, which are inherent in processes of leadership transition, including the eventual emergence of new winning coalitions of actors within the party. Drawing on the distinction between "leader-centred populisms" and "movement-based populisms" (Padoan, 2020), we hypothesize that in leftist populist experiences belonging to the former category (e.g., correismo) the first set of factors plays a stronger role in accounting for the process of leadership transition, while in leftist populist experiences belonging to the latter category (e.g., masismo), intra-organizational realignments matter more. This has an impact on the extent to which dramatic changes – in terms of political/ideological orientations and of party elites’ replacements – can be expected, and thus on the scientific debate on the processes of institutionalization in (leftist) populist parties.