León Roldós Aguilera


León Roldós Aguilera is an Ecuadorian politician. He was born in Guayaquil in 1942. His mother died during his birth. He studied law at the state University of Guayaquil. He became secretary of the Municipality of Guayaquil under Mayor Assad Bucaram, of the populist party Concentración de Fuerzas Populares. He also had a private practice of law and consultancy mostly to the banking sector. He later became a professor in the University of Guayaquil and a dean of the law school of the Universidad Laica Vicente Rocafuerte.
In 1979, his brother Jaime Roldós was elected president in a ticket representing the alliance between Concentración de Fuerzas Populares and the Christian Democrat Party Democracia Popular. He was then appointed chairman of the Monetary Board.
President Jaime Roldós died in an airplane crash while in office; the National Congress elected León Roldós to serve out the term as vice-president, with President Osvaldo Hurtado, of Democracia Popular. León Roldós did not enjoy a good relationship with President Hurtado, having opposed the assumption of the private external debt by the government, among other economic policies.
On 31 October 1994, León Roldós was elected rector of the University of Guayaquil, and served two terms, which were acknowledged to have revitalized this institution.
León Roldos ran for president in 1992 under the banner of the Socialist Party of Ecuador and in a second attempt in 2002 as an independent; he received then 15.4% of the vote and barely missed the runoff election. He was also elected Congressman for the Province of Guayas.
In 2006 Ecuadorian general elections he ran again, this time in a ticket of the alliance of "Ethics and Democracy Network" and of the Democratic Left Party. He raked a fourth place of the vote, receiving 4.8% of the votes cast.
Note: León Roldós does not belong to the Ecuadorian Roldosist Party, which is named after his brother, former President Jaime Roldós.