Ecuador: the dispute for the second place of the ball …

From Quito

A crisis has erupted in Ecuador. At the moment, it’s unclear how this will end. It could evolve or collapse in a few days, a result that will be linked to the electoral results of the National Electoral Council (CNE) which will indicate who, ultimately, will remain for a second presidential round: yes Guillermo Lasso, from the CREO alliance and the Social-Christian Party (PSC), or Yaku Pérez, from Pachakutik.

The total of votes calculated, 99%, by the electoral power, indicates an advantage of Pérez over Lasso: 20.06% against 19.53%. SThis is a result that had not been anticipated by the majority of pollsters which showed Lasso in second place with a distance over Pérez, third. TFor the moment, 15.97% of Xavier Hervas, candidate of the party of the democratic left, had not been planned.

Regarding the results for the National Assembly, the data indicates that Unidos por la Esperanza, led by Arauz, would have 31.65%, Pachakutik 17.40%, the democratic left 12.25% and CREO 9.70% and PSC 9.73%.

The fight for second place began the same Sunday evening, when a quick count bias was known. The two claimed the place in the waiver. Lasso accused the CNE of delivering the numbers irregularly: “With all due respect the CNE advisers deserve, they did wrong by mistaking the Ecuadorian people for a quick count of 2,100 minutes when the agreed sample was 2,400 minutes, and they led to confusion and confusion. ‘error when five minutes later on a television the channel reports that the results of the rapid count put us in the second round ”.

Indeed, after the rapid count announced by the president of the electoral power, Diana Atamaint, giving Pérez in the second round, the vice-president of the CNE, Enrique Pita, affirmed on television shortly after that it was Lasso who was in the second round. . Atamaint is linked to Pachakutik, and Pita, to Lasso, which, while this does not indicate a change in outcomes as such, highlighted the complexity of a storyline with multiple actors and interests displayed.

Pérez, for his part, called for a mobilization in front of the CNE, in the center of Quito, where, in front of supporters of his candidacy, he asserted Monday that “a fraud was being conspired between Messrs. Correa, Lasso and Nebot -of the CPS- to prevent us from reaching the second round. “There he expressed his intention not to let” the will of the Ecuadorians be stolen. ”

Pérez went even further and pointed out that he had won Arauz’s candidacy: “We should have 35 points for the presidency, there are 15 points which were taken in our vote and transferred to other candidates.” He called for the opening minutes in three key provinces, Guayas, Manabí and Pichincha, with wins for Arauz in the top two and Lasso in the third.

It has not yet been clearly stated when the final scoring will take place and it is difficult to anticipate whether it will be accepted by the losing candidate or whether he will seek actions to prevent it.. The result will open up very different run-off scenarios. If Lasso wins, there will be a blank political confrontation: a progressive, Latin American project, led by Arauz, and a neoliberal plan aligned with the United States, led by the banker of Guayaquil.

This would be changed if Perez who will go to the second round. Although the candidate of Pachakutik, the electoral arm of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) built a campaign aesthetic on a bicycle, with a water logo, and an image of austerity, his government proposals are, on the contrary, contradictory. On the one hand, he proposed a series of measures related to the need to move “from an extractive stage to a post-extractive stage”, to hold a consultation to end metal mines or to build a women’s ministry. .

But, on the other hand, he proposed the reduction of the State with the suppression of institutions such as the Participation Council, the Electoral Litigation Court, the sub-secretariats, with, among others, the dismissals, a possible free trade agreement with the United StatesIn Latin American politics, he carried out numerous public attacks against Evo Morales, as well as against Dilma Rouseff and Cristina Fernández, whom he accused of corruption. Pérez, who in 2017 called on Lasso to vote against Lenín Moreno – “a banker is better than a dictatorship,” he said – would then present a different kind of scenario for Arauz’s candidacy.

There are still days to know what will be the final configuration of the April 11 waiver. At that moment, the surprise turns, the aggravation of a crisis or its improvement can occur, within the framework of an institutional framework which is not very credible, which has already demonstrated its partiality, its maneuvers and its irregularities.

The prospect of the second round could also put the candidate of the citizen revolution in the need to form alliances to widen the electoral flow., in the face of what may be the attempt to form an anti-correista front which, however, risks weakening as a possible conflict between Lasso and Pérez intensifies. If Arauz reached the first place and a high percentage of votes in the framework of a judicial-media persecution against the space and political project he is leading, on the other hand, the number reached was lower than that which had been estimated.