Ecuador’s votes beaten by neoliberalism and co …

From Quito

Next Sunday, February 7, the presidential and legislative elections will take place in Ecuador. Of the sixteen candidates, three are leading the polls: Andrés Arauz, candidate of the citizens’ revolution – led by former president Rafael Correa – in coalition with other forces, Guillermo Lasso, known as the banker candidate, and Yaku Pérez, for the Pachakutik party.

In Ecuador, as in Argentina or Bolivia, the victory in the first round is obtained with more than 40% of the votes and 10 points difference. Arauz, según la mayoría de las encuestas, tiene posibilidad de lograrlo, en el marco de una campaña que se ha enfrentado a obstáculos e irregularidades por parte del Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE) that comenzaron desde la hora cero de su inscripción est y siguen hasta days.

The CNE, for example, banned Correa from appearing in Arauz election spots and recently announced that the election for Andean parliamentarians would not take place. which was scheduled for next Sunday’s elections. Correa, as well as Evo Morales, denounced possible last-minute maneuvers by the CNE.

Applications are currently at the end of the campaign. In the case of Arauz, it will take place on Thursday in Quito. Carlos Rabascall, candidate for the vice-presidency of the formula, proceeded to the closure in the city of Guayaquil, capital of the province of Guayas, one of the central points to gain to access the Carondelet Palace.

The country comes to the battle stricken by the pandemic, now with its epicenter in Pichincha province, where Quito is and the economic recession. The capital offers an image of reduced movement of people, businesses with weak stores due to the crisis, and a barely electoral climate with few posters and campaign colors.

The years of Lenín Moreno’s government leave a neoliberal legacy, worsened in 2020 after the arrival of the pandemic which showed tragic images of corpses on the streets of Guayaquil, further economic deterioration, it deepened the downsizing of the State and its indebtedness, first with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), then, in January, with the US Corporation for Financing Development (CFD).

Moreno, who will step down as president in May, paid a visit to Washington in recent days, where he met with key political and economic representatives, such as Juan González, director for the Western Hemisphere of the National Security Council, Kristalina Georgieva, IMF Director Mauricio Claver-Carone, President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS).

The current president seeks, in his last steps, to condition the future possibilities of the country. The loan, for example, with the CFD, an instrument created in 2018 within the framework of the law for a better use of investments that lead to development -Build Law, bipartisan-, is conditional on the entry of private investments in companies. public sector in the oil, electricity, transport and telecommunications sectors, at the same time as it requires cutting ties with Chinese investments in the face, for example, of the development of 5G technology.

In May a new government will begin, in the case of Lasso, this would represent a deepening of the neoliberal model -long without the transition piece that Moreno meant and, in the case of Arauz, this would bring a gradual shift internally, with an agenda of Latin American integration in foreign policy, something that began to be expressed, for example, in the approach with President Alberto Fernández for a collaboration on vaccines against covid-19.

The competition in Ecuador takes place in the context of a Latin America which, in recent years, has been marked by strong disputes, with a deepening of the legal mechanisms – Ecuador being a paradigmatic case – coups d’état, as in Bolivia, the economic blockades, as in Venezuela, as well as strong challenges to the neoliberal order with uprisings, mobilizations and the access of progressive governments to the presidencies of Mexico, in 2018, of Argentina, in 2019 and Bolivia in 2020.

A victory for Arauz would, in this context, be a new step on the progressive map of Latin America, that would allow progress in the reconstruction of integration instruments, such as Unasur, a goal that has already been announced by the candidate for the Citizen Revolution, or to strengthen Celac, currently under the presidency of Mexico. This would mean, at the same time, the recentralization of the OAS, an organization that played a central role in the recognition of parallel institutions created in Venezuela in 2019 and the legitimization of the coup d’état in Bolivia the same year.

The continental involvement of the Ecuadorian election resulted in the publication of fake news on social networks and in various media, such as Bugle, who spread a proven lie that claimed Arauz offered to put $ 250 back to the vote, or the magazine The week, from Colombia, who claimed that Arauz had received funding from the Colombian National Liberation Army. A journalist from The week He later confessed that the information was not “absolutely true”.

So there are many variables at play in Sunday’s contest, within the country, for the region, its unity and geopolitical positioning, and for Joe Biden’s new US administration. Arauz’s bet is to win in the first round, while the one on the right is to reach the waiver by Lasso. The latter said he would support Pérez in the event that Pachakutik’s candidate reached the second round. For now, polls indicate that Arauz could pull off the feat, a possibility that explains the redoubled attacks on his candidacy.