Borja had political concerns from a young age and, in the 1950s, he joined the
Ecuadorian Radical Liberal Party (PL) and was a prominent student voice against
Camilo Ponce Enríquez's government. In 1970, he was re-elected to Congress, although he was unable to take up his seat after Congress was suspended a few days later. Borja won the
1988 presidential election with 54% of the vote and broad support from both right-wing and left-wing parties, despite a fierce campaign by his rival,
Abdalá Bucaram, in which he was constantly subjected to insults and verbal abuse. The two met again on 26 February 1992, at a drug policy conference. Under his presidency, the guerrilla-terrorist group
¡Alfaro Vive, Carajo! agreed to renounce armed struggle and surrendered its weapons after a process that lasted from 1989 to 1991, and he ordered the release of General
Frank Vargas Pazzos, who had attempted a coup in 1986. However, Ecuador also became a new center for cocaine processing and distribution, and impunity for criminal activities worsened. In 1989, he founded
Petroecuador. Borja developed an important literacy program under the Monsignor Leonidas Proaño National Literacy Campaign, which ran from 1988 to 1990 and achieved the literacy of at least 70,000 young students and 180.000 adults. In the early 1990s, he had to deal with a major
cholera epidemic throughout the country. Starting in 1990, the economic situation began to recover, but several political crises led to the Democratic Left's loss in the
1992 legislative elections. One of those crises occurred when, a month before the elections, he declared Congress “morally dissolved” after it failed to pass the Monetary Regime Bill. That declaration, which took place five days after Fujimori's
self-coup in Peru, raised fears of a coup attempt by Borja. Constitutionally limited to one term, Borja was succeeded by
Sixto Durán-Ballén on 10 August 1992, who had won that year's presidential elections. ==Later life==