Ecuador: threats one month after the presidential elections | …

From Quito.On April 11, the second round of presidential elections will take place in Ecuador. Andres Arauz, first at the polls on February 7, and Guillermo LassoThey are on tour in the country with different social, economic and political actors. The campaign will officially begin next Tuesday, but, shortly after a decisive election, there are still threats.

One of them was the call for the intervention of the armed forces in the electoral process launched by Yaku Pérez, who was third in the competition, and maintains that there was fraud. The candidate for The Pachakutik party has publicly demanded that he make a constitutional declaration to replace all members of the National Electoral Council (CNE), the first electoral round be declared void, and an intervention of the Office of the Controller and the prosecution takes place in the computer systems . electoral power.

Pérez also asked the prosecution to render a judgment on the complaint filed by the Colombian prosecution regarding alleged campaign funding for the National Liberation Army (ELN) in the campaign of Arauz, that is to say that the one who won the first round is criminalized within the framework of an international operation denounced as false by many international voices, in particular Colombian ones. The interests of torpedoing a possible victory of Arauz are numerous by the Colombian government, at the hands of the party of Alvaro Uribe -who campaigned for Donald trump in the last American elections.

The words of candidate Pachakutik were denounced as a call for a coup by many political actors inside and outside the country. Pérez, then sought to back down, and said: “I am not asking for a military intervention that affects democracy in Ecuador, my request is that the police ensure that the polling stations remain intact, until they open up and demonstrate transparency. “

His appeal to the armed forces highlighted the movement of underground plots that seek to alter the April 11 election in different ways. At the same time as this alarm, the declaration of the president of the CNE took place, Diana Atamaint, who said on Friday that he was “seriously concerned about the observance of the electoral calendar”. The situation, as he explained, is due to the fact that they are “while waiting for what the Litigation Electoral Tribunal (TCE) is doing these days, which are crucial for the country ”.

Atamaint claimed to be “in the hands of the ECA”, a situation which is due to the fact that the Court last Monday accepted the appeal submitted by Pérez asking the count of more than 20,000 minutes, he must therefore decide whether this count should be carried out or not. The decision taken by the TCE was preceded by the release of photographs of what was a night meeting in a private building between Pérez and one of the members of the Tribunal, Angel Torres.

The CNE had already carried out a 31-minute recount of the total requested by candidate Pachakutik, who had not changed the result of the first round. However, the acceptance by the TCE, with 15 days to decide once the request is accepted, left the electoral race with an element in abeyance.

Meanwhile, Arauz and Lasso continue to operate nationwide and across social media, and other political forces have taken a stand ahead of the waiver. Yes indeed, Xavier Hervas, from the Democratic Left Party, fourth in the elections, said neither of the two candidates would make an alliance, change its initial position, which was that of a call to form a front with Pérez and Lasso against Arauz.

On the other hand, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAI), whose political instrument is the Pachakutik party, has decided to promote the “ideological null vote” as the second round approaches, and to demand that the TCE “give way to the recount of the votes”. The decision was taken at the enlarged Council of the movement, crossed by many debates, such as the relationship between CONAIE and Pachakutik, as well as the internal tensions between sectors in search of alliances on the right, like Pérez himself, and those positioning left, like the leader Leonidas Iza.

With the decisions announced by Hervas and CONAIE-Pachakutik, the possibility of forming an electoral alliance against Arauz is therefore excluded, at least publicly. It had been raised by different actors, including Lasso himself in his initial approach with Pérez, appealing to the Correismo / anti-Correismo divide, constructed as a device by the right to divide national politics, and used as a reason by sectors. of the indigenous population. movement to defend the rapprochements with those who, even if they are on the right, oppose a candidacy for the citizen revolution.

The second round will then be a dispute between Arauz and Lasso, each representing different political, economic, social and geopolitical models.. The first, with a progressive and Latin American proposal, with the support of presidents such as Alberto Fernandez and leaders love Pepe Mujica, the second, with a neoliberal project aligned with American foreign policy, a position which emerges clearly from his career in private banking and politics, even if his current campaign tries to present it in another facet.

The uncertainty about the possible decisions of the country’s institutions, in particular the prosecution and the TCE, in the context of four years marked by political persecution against the leaders of the citizen revolution, throws constant levels of concern in the face of the competition. . Arauz’s candidacy.