Legend has it that Narcissus, a talented and beautiful young man whom men and women found attractive, vain and stupid, was so arrogant that one day, when he saw his image in the water of a pond, in love with himself, he tried to catch, caress, own his own reflection, and when it doesn’t work out, he gets so frustrated that he commits suicide in the end. Narcissism is a common characteristic of Latin American politicians and many Ecuadorian public figures.

In the 19th century, Juan Montalvo exposed the dictator Veintemilla, a man who, after an auspicious beginning, monopolized all powers under the guise of a constitution and who, with the support of the army and flattering politicians, persistently attacked and persecuted his opponents. Not being able, the dictator, to understand that there are people who do not like him, all the events in society happened out of hatred or affection for his person. An emblematic narcissist who liked to show what he eats, what he wears and the luxury of his life.

Presidential candidates in Ecuador are looking for alliances or coalitions, figures that are conjunctural and given only for political interests

Electoral politics requires arenas where candidates are paraded and the professional vote market strategists behind each campaign promote the names of those who hired them. Every day of promotion produces, for public consumption, a sense of public affection. Each candidate sees his smiling picture praised by people who, for publicity purposes, discover his virtues. The fiction of the campaign, sometimes, when there are electoral victories, becomes a reality for Narcissus, supported by the materiality of power and then, it has happened several times, that those who were young people full of passion for ideals, are transformed into Napoleonic caricatures thirsty for glory and eventually become another Twenty-million. Montalvo described him as someone whose “heart does not beat: it rolls in a pile of mud.” His passions are base, unhealthy; her incentives, those from corrupted matter…”.

Complex and hasty political decisions

The multiplication of candidacies and electoral dispersion on the right and on the left is not good news for anyone.

Ecuadorian society is going through one of the most dramatic crises in its history. To the historical problems characterized by worsening inequality and worsening poverty, is now added the erosion of the state’s capacity to provide the minimum service that justifies its existence in an organized society: security for the people. It seems to be a time when people who have the ability to make decisions think about the whole, admit their limitations and see the possibility of giving up aspirations and vanities in exchange for the common good. This is relevant for any ideological tendency of the political scene. The multiplication of candidacies and electoral dispersion on the right and on the left is not good news for anyone. Making concessions, creating consensus, affirming ideologies as a basis for the production of common public policy proposals, instead of empowering personal figures, can be the principle of solving the serious problems we face and avoiding the narcissistic suicide generated by attempts to universal love for one’s own image. (OR)