Rosalía Arteaga

Rosalía Arteaga Serrano (born 5 December 1956) is an Ecuadorian politician who served as the 39th president of Ecuador for two days in 1997 from 9 to 11 February. She previously served as the 40th vice president under President Abdalá Bucaram from 1996 until his removal from office 1997, a role she subsequently retained under President Fabián Alarcón after stepping down from the presidency until March 1998. She is the country's first ever female head of state.

Arteaga announced her intention to stand for secretary-general of the United Nations in the 2021 selection, though incumbent António Guterres was ultimately appointed to a second term in office.

Early life and education

Arteaga was born in Cuenca, Ecuador and attended the University of Cuenca.

Political career

First Vice Presidency (1996-1997)

Arteaga became vice president in 1996, following the election of Abdalá Bucaram as president. However, the first frictions between Bucaram and Arteaga became evident after just a month of being in power: when Bucaram traveled to the 10th Rio Group Summit in Cochabamba (Bolivia) in September 1996, he did not entrust her with power. Their problems were never overcome throughout the short-lived Bucaram administration.

Brief Presidency and Second Vice Presidency (1997-1998)

On 6 February 1997, President Bucaram was declared unfit to govern by Congress. Arteaga and congressional leader Fabián Alarcón became locked in a dispute over who should succeed Bucaram since the constitution was vague on the issue. Initially, Alarcón was sworn in with the support of Congress. On 9 February, however, Arteaga, who had insisted that as Vice President she should become president, was sworn in instead as Ecuador's first female president. Two days later, however, on 11 February, with the support of Congress and the army, Alarcón was sworn in again, and Arteaga resigned as president and reverted to her post as vice president. The political forces in Parliament and, notably, the lack of a constitutional norm on vice presidential succession, eliminated by errors of codification during the Durán-Ballén era, did not allow Arteaga to succeed Bucaram.

Before Bucaram's dismissal, Arteaga had denounced that a coup d'état was being planned from Congress by Alarcón. Consequently, the antipathy between Arteaga, who earlier claimed for herself the Presidency, and Alarcón became immediately evident. Because of this, the first decrees of Alarcón as interim president were to remove the coordination of the social front from the Vice Presidency. Later, Arteaga was also impeded from managing the Nuevo Rumbo Cultural program, the remodeling of the Sucre National Theater, and the committee for the construction of new airports as Alarcón's delegate at the National Development Council (CONADE). Finally, she was stripped of her representation in the National Security Council. In the 14 months that Arteaga was part of the Alarcón government, the Vice Presidency lost functions within the state structure and as a development planning body. Her role was, for all purposes, limited to solemnizing inaugurations, processing orders, and sponsoring social events. Moreover, like Bucaram before him, of the eight trips outside abroad that Alarcón made, in five of them Vice President Arteaga was not entrusted with power.

Arteaga continued to clash with Alarcón and took any opportunity, when interviewed by international journalists and correspondents or when abroad, to denounce the unconstitutionality of the Alarcón government. She denounced that Ecuador was experiencing a '' de facto'' regime, also earning the antipathy of the military in the process. Finally, when, as she put it, it became "an absurd o continuebeing Vice President," she resigned from her post as vice president in March 1998. She then ran for president in the elections that were held in May 1998 and finished fifth, receiving only 5% of the vote.

Post-presidency

Arteaga was secretary-general of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization until 2007 and is a member of the editorial board of the Encyclopædia Britannica. She continues to receive a lifetime pension from the Ecuadorian government of $48,690 annually.

With the support of "Forward", a civil society organization, Arteaga announced her intention to seek the position of secretary-general of the United Nations in the 2021 selection. However, incumbent António Guterres was successfully appointed to a second consecutive term as Secretary-General.

Arteaga holds several leadership roles at philanthropic and social justice foundations, including President of the Foundation for the Integration and Development of Latin America, Founder of the Rosalia Arteaga Glocal Women Foundation, and Honorary Academician of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED).https://LatinAmericanReports latinamericareports.com/interview-with-horasis-speaker-rosalia-arteaga-forbes/8539/

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Arteaga, Rosalia
1956 births
Living people
Alfarista Radical Front politicians
Ecuadorian people of Basque descent
Women presidents in South America
People from Cuenca, Ecuador
Presidents of Ecuador
Vice presidents of Ecuador
Women government ministers of Ecuador
Education ministers of Ecuador
Women vice presidents in South America
20th-century Ecuadorian women politicians
21st-century Ecuadorian women politicians
21st-century Ecuadorian politicians
20th-century Ecuadorian politicians
First women presidents
20th-century women presidents