Jorge Jamil Mahuad Witt is an Ecuadorian lawyer, academic and former politician, he was the 41st President of Ecuador from August 10, 1998 to January 21, 2000.
Life and career
Mahuad was born in Loja, Ecuador. He is of Lebanese and German descent. He initially ran in the presidential election of 1988, coming in a distant fifth place. Ten years later, he won the presidential election by a very close margin. The defeated candidate Álvaro Noboa asked for a vote recount, which was denied by the authority responsible. There was a severe economic crisis in Ecuador, which had led to a 60% cut in the armed forces budget. Mahuad's popularity rating had fallen from 60% in October 1998 to 6% in January 2000. In the final days of 1999, he announced the dollarization of the economy of Ecuador, along with a number of International Monetary Fund measures. Mahuad was forced to resign after a week of demonstrations by indigenous Ecuadorians and a military revolt led by Lucio Gutiérrez. Before his election as president, he served as Mayor of Quito from 1992 to 1998. He proposed economic reforms that produced the "dollarization" of the economy. He declared a freeze in bank accounts in order to control rampant inflation. This caused massive unrest as the lower classes struggled to convert their now useless Ecuadorian sucres to US dollars and lost wealth, while the upper classes gained wealth in turn. Under Mahuad's recession-plagued term, the economy shrank significantly, and inflation reached levels of up to 60 percent. Mahuad attended Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and received a Master of Public Administration in 1989. He was a US State Department-sponsored Fulbright Fellow. He lectures in ethics and politics at several universities. During Mahuad's presidency, a historic peace agreement with Peru was signed, resolving long-standing border disputes. Under the agreement, Ecuador renounced its claims to sovereignty of the disputed territory under the Rio de Janeiro Protocol, and in return, Peru deeded ownership of one km² of territory to Ecuador. Mahuad concluded the peace with Peru on October 26, 1998. Former Vice PresidentAlberto Dahik, architect of the economic programme, is fleeing abroad after being indicted for "questionable use of reserved funds". Former President Fabián Alarcón is arrested on charges of covering more than a thousand fictitious jobs. President Mahuad is implicated for receiving money from drug trafficking during his election campaign. Several major bankers are also cited in cases. Mahuad is also a Senior Advisor at CMI International Group in Cambridge, MA. In May 2014, Ecuador’s National Court of Justice sentenced him to 12 years jail term on embezzlement charges.
