32 The Americas The Economist July 10th 2021
der Mr Moïsethesituation grewworse.
Critics accusedhim ofusinggangs toa
greater extenttodohisbidding,whilehav
ing far lesscontroloverthem,thanprevi
ous presidents.Inrecentweeksfightingin
PortauPrincehasintensified;thousands
of people hadtofleetheirhomesinJune
alone. By someestimates,kidnappingsin
Haiti tripledlastyearcomparedwith2019.
AlthoughMrMoïsehasbeenthefocus
of much discontent,hisdeathisunlikely
to simplifythings.“Hewasa complicated
and flawedperson, but thepeople who
made himthesinglefocusofallthatis
wrong in thesystemofHaitimissthelarg
er failuresofthatsystem,”saysMichael
Deibert, an AmericanexpertonHaiti.
Mr Joseph has little legitimacy. Mr
Moïse had nominatedArielHenry,a doc
tor,aspermanentprimeminister;hewas
duetotakeofficeonthedayoftheassassi
nation.Theconstitutiondoesnotprovide
forthelackofbotha presidentanda Na
tionalAssembly,andthechiefjusticeof
theSupremeCourt,who couldarbitrate,
diedtwoweeksagoofcovid19. Thekilling
couldalsomakeithardertoholdelections
fora newpresidentandlegislature,which
aredueinSeptember.
InmanywaysHaitialreadylookslikea
failedstate.Menwithgunshavelongter
roriseditspeople.OnlylastmonthJimmy
Chérisier,aliasBarbecue,a formerpolice
manandleaderofanallianceofgangs,an
nounceda “revolution”againstthestatus
quo(thoughmanythinkhemeanttheop
position).Thepoliceareweakerthanthe
gangs,whomaynowfeeltheyhavea free
hand.Nowthatlawlessnesshasreached
thecountry’shighestoffice,manyHaitians
feartheworst.n
Colombia
Blocking the
schoolhouse door
L
earning hasalways been difficult for
Samuel Duván Rodríguez, a sevenyear
old with a neurodevelopmental disorder.
It has become tougher still since his school
in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, closed be
cause of covid19. His mother says he uses
her phone to log in to his teacher’s lessons.
But he seems to take in little. It doesn’t help
that he has to share the device with his ten
yearold brother. Lately, however, neither
child is learning anything at all, as all their
teachers have been on strike.
If all goes to plan, schools in Colombia
will finally reopen over the next two
weeks, with most back by July 15th. Better
late than never. Schools in Mexico and Bra
zil have already started to resume inper
son teaching. By contrast, in Colombia
children have borne one of the longest
educational lockdowns in Latin America.
Mostly this is due to Fecode, the power
ful state school teachers’ union. It is part of
the national strike committee that con
vened the antigovernment protests that
have convulsed Colombia since April 28th.
As thousands took to the streets, its mem
bers refused to teach for at least 50 days. On
July 8th, as The Economistwent to press, it
was planning another march in the capital
against reopening schools.
The union is one of the most powerful
in Latin America, a region already full of
overmighty unions. Fully 87% of Colom
bia’s publicschool teachers signed up to it.
It has a history of throwing its weight
around. In 2015 it went on strike to oppose
a proposal to use more stringent measures
to evaluate teachers; after three weeks, the
government caved in. Since then the union
has felt emboldened, says Isabel Segovia,
an education analyst.
The pandemic has further strengthened
it. Fecode teachers initially refused to
teach because they believed it put them at
risk of catching the virus, with some good
reason. Around 11% of Colombia's schools
lack running water, making handwashing
impossible. Even so much of the reason for
the strike is political: the union wants a ba
sic income programme that would cost 6%
of gdpand to help elect a leftwing govern
ment in next year’s elections.
Nelson Alarcón, a union leader, says all
teachers should be vaccinated before Fe
code agrees to resume classes. Ideally, chil
dren should be vaccinated, too. All teach
ers should stop working, he says, until the
government adapts every school with wa
B OGOTÁ
A powerful teaching union tries to
keep pupils at home
Urbanmalaise
Quitting the city
Q
uitohasalotgoingforit.Stretched
along a breathtakingly high Andean
valley beneath snowcapped volcanoes,
Ecuador’s capital is packed with historic
buildings and enticing eateries. But it is
woefully governed. In June the city council
impeached Jorge Yunda, the mayor; he is
charged with failing to hold city council
meetings that would have solved an under
groundrailway crisis. He is also under in
vestigation by the attorneygeneral’s office
on suspicion of embezzlement related to
the purchase of faulty covid19 tests (he de
nies both the embezzlement and the faulty
tests). On July 1st the impeachment pro
ceedings were affirmedby the electoral
court. Mr Yunda now wears an electronic
tag so that the authorities can monitor his
movements.
The mayor is not the only problem. A
shiny underground railway costing $2bn
has yet to be finished after five years of dig
ging. Buses careen through the streets with
little regard for road rules. Crime is rife:
two policemen were shot in their car in
June and a prominent criminal lawyer was
gunned down in April. The 500year old ci
ty “needs to be reinvented”, says Gonzalo
Ortiz, a former city councillor.
Quiteños tend to point to 2007 as the
turning point in the city’s fortunes, when
Rafael Correa, a populist, became presi
dent. His government pushed through a
new constitution that called city adminis
trations “autonomous decentralised gov
ernments”, but in practice weakened the
authority of mayors. Even so the mayor of
Quito at the time, Augusto Barrera, was an
ally; he also stripped the vast metropolitan
region’s districts of their power.
The new model failed to deliver the
promised benefits. A new airport took
three more years to complete than
planned; Mr Barrera’s administration
failed to build a proper access road to it (it
was finally completed, five times over bud
get, by his successor). A project to clean up
the main river in the city was never com
pleted; it remains a sewer. Mr Barrera start
ed the railway project but only oversaw the
building of two stations and did not bother
to work out who would run it.
In 2019 Mr Yunda won office with just
21% of the vote. His weak mandate has not
helped matters, but he argues that now he
is being targeted by a racist elite (he is of in
digenous heritage). Whatever the cause,
his shoddy management of the capital
means that many are abandoning it for the
wealthier suburbs, whicharenow think
ing of seceding. Mr Yunda’slegacy may be
an emptier, poorer Quito.n
Q UITO
Ecuadorians are fed up with the capital
Pretty but dysfunctional