Quito/Prensa Latina
Ecuador is today 24 hours away from going to the polls for a popular consultation and referendum in the midst of a new state of exception due to the energy crisis, insecurity and the diplomatic conflict with Mexico.
The blackouts were the protagonists of the week that has just concluded and this Saturday, on the eve of the consultative process, the Government announced that the cuts will decrease and that tomorrow, the day of the vote, there will be no power interruptions.
The energy situation led President Daniel Noboa to accuse 22 sector officials of sabotage, including former minister Andrea Arrobo, considering that this would harm him in the consultation, a key procedure for the president’s political future.
The Secretary of Communication of the Presidency, Roberto Izurieta, stated in an interview that “the floodgates were opened” and “they let the water flow” from the Mazar reservoir, one of the largest and most important in the country, something that according to several experts is technically impossible.
In this context of lack of electricity generation, which causes losses of around 20 million dollars to the productive sector, Noboa decided to suspend the working day on Thursday and Friday, although many private sector companies did not accept the measure.
Finally, this Friday, the president decreed a new state of emergency that will last 60 days and thus ordered the military to guard the hydroelectric plants, a measure that is in line with his theory of sabotage.
Despite the declaration of internal armed conflict being in force that allows the presence of the Armed Forces on the streets and in prisons, insecurity also marked these days in Ecuador.
On Tuesday, José Sánchez, from the municipality of Camilo Ponce, province of Azuay, and on Friday, Jorge Maldonado, from the canton of Portovelo, province of El Oro, were murdered, two incidents in three days that show political violence in the country.
In turn, the Government received this week the condemnation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) for invading the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest former vice president Jorge Glas, who was there as an asylum and is now on a hunger strike in a maximum security prison.
In response, Venezuela closed its consulates in Ecuador; and Honduras called its charge d’affaires for consultations, while the International Court of Justice set hearings for April 30 and May 1 to hear the parties after Mexico’s complaint about the assault on its diplomatic headquarters.
All this is happening at the gates of the popular consultation in which the young president is risking his political future and with which he intends to measure his real possibilities for his eventual re-election in 2025.
Most of the questions are about security, but Noboa also intends to promote changes that threaten the country’s sovereignty, with international arbitration, and job insecurity, with hourly work, say social and political movements opposed to the consultation.
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