La rebelión de abril 2005 en Quito

Democracia sin Partidos: iUna Puerta a la Refundación de la República?

Abstract

The article examines the April 2005 rebellion in Quito as an unexpected citizen uprising—led by self-organized middle‑class groups known as the “forajidos”—that overwhelmed both President Lucio Gutiérrez’s government and traditional political parties, exposing a deep crisis of representation that had been building since the 1990s. Saltos shows how this mobilization, grounded in new symbolic forms of action and communication, disrupted the balance between oligarchic blocs, triggered the president’s fall, and opened a struggle between two paths: the re‑legitimation of institutional order by elites and the possibility of a grassroots democratic refoundation. Although the social energy achieved a powerful de‑constituting effect, its lack of stable organization enabled the rapid restoration of the system, leaving unresolved the tension between delegative democracy and direct citizen participation.