Alfredo Poveda


Alfredo Ernesto Poveda Burbano was an Interim President of Ecuador January 11, 1976, to August 10, 1979.

Background

Poveda was born in Ambato on January 24, 1926. He attended Mejía High School in Quito and the Escuela Superior Naval "Comandante Rafael Morán Valverde" and graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Náutica Manuel Belgrano. He also attended military academies in Argentina, Brazil, and the United States.

Career

Poveda first served in the Ecuadorian navy where he was promoted as the naval attache at Ecuadorian missions to Western European countries. He became commander of the First Naval Zone and commander of the Marine Infantry Battalion.
Poveda came to power through a military coup in 1976 and was appointed by the Supreme Council of Government as president. He governed with two other members, General Guillermo Durán Arcentales and General Luis Leoro Franco. The triumvirate structured a plan for return to democratic government that led to multiparty general elections after a referendum on a choice of constitutions between a new one created by a constitutional assembly appointed by the Triumvirate and the Constitution of 1948 with several reforms. The new constitution was adopted in 1979 and it was recognized as a progressive document. The referendum lead to multi-party general elections among some twenty recognized political parties and the populist lawyer from Guayaquil Jaime Roldós Aguilera was elected President of Ecuador.
The military government was known for its crackdown of dissent and was particularly noted for its handling of the October 1977 sugar workers' strike at El Aztra, which resulted to the death of 100 individuals. The regime also withdrew land reform in the same year while all pending land cases were concluded in favor of landowners.
Upon return to a democratic system Admiral Poveda withdrew from public life and took residency in Guayaquil, Ecuador. While returning to Ecuador after a conference in Russia, he died from a myocardial infarction during a layover in Miami, Florida.