From Quito
More than 13.4 million Ecuadorians are called to define this Sunday the political course of the country for the coming years, although this time they will do so in advance due to the premature fall of the government of Guillermo Lasso. The presidential campaign was marked by an alarming wave of insecurity, exemplified in the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio, when there were only days left before the appointment with the polls. His case is not the only one: in recent weeks the assassinations of leaders and the reports of attempted attacks have multiplied, without distinction of ideologies.
The electoral process began on Thursday with the vote of prisoners without a final sentence and continued on Friday with the vote at home for people over 50 years of age or people with disabilities of more than 75 percent. The vote was anticipated since in May Lasso dissolved the Assembly, with an opposition majority, when he was preparing to vote on a motion of censure against him for alleged embezzlement. He then called elections, protected by the constitutional resource known as “cross death.”
There is no widespread enthusiasm in the streets for these elections. In recent days, electoral posters have not been seen in the center of Quito. Neither did cars go by proselytizing nor were militants seen handing out pamphlets. You could barely see a poster with Villavicencio’s face on the awning of a kiosk in the La Mariscal neighborhood. It is worth remembering that several campaign events had to be suspended after the crime in Villavicencio.
Luisa González spikes in point
In the presidential battle there are eight applicants: the lawyer and ex-assembly member Luisa Gonzalez, candidate of the Citizen Revolution led by former President Rafael Correa; the former vice president Otto Sonnenholzer and the former legionnaire and businessman specializing in security Jan Topic. The indigenous environmentalist is also in the race Yaku Perezbusinessmen Xavier Hervas y Daniel Noboalawyer Bolivar Armijos and the journalist Christian Zuritawho replaces Villavicencio.
The rival to beat in these elections is Luisa Gonzalezwhich has been leading all the polls with an intention to vote that in some cases around 30 percent. If the forecasts come true and the absolute majority is not achieved, there will be a second round, although no one dares to take it for granted, taking into account that the Democracy Code prevents the dissemination of polls ten days before the elections. The latest polls came out on August 10, the day after Villavicencio’s murder. González continues to lead, but the gap with the rest is narrowing.
Eleven days before the elections, pollsters agreed that indecision among Ecuadorian voters was around 50 percent. The great unknown is to know if this wave of violence that Ecuador is experiencing favors the possibilities of the right, represented above all in Topic and Sonnenholzner. Also if Villavicencio’s death boosts Zurita’s chances. C.andidato of the Construye Movement, Zurita was among the applicants with the least possibilities.
All the candidates focused the campaign on their offers to combat one of the main concerns of the population: the insecurity and unprecedented violence that is shaking Ecuador and that the authorities attribute to organized crime and drug trafficking. In just five years, the country went from 5.8 to 25.32 intentional homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022the highest figure in its history.
endless violence
What was once a redoubt of peace in the region became a key point for drug trafficking mafias to, through its ports, transport large quantities of cocaine produced in Colombia and Peru to Europe and the United States. In this spiral of violence, Villavicencio was murdered, riddled with bullets by Colombian hitmen on August 9 as he was leaving an act of his electoral campaign, a few days after he publicly denounced having received death threats.
Villavicencio is the best-known face of an unfortunate phenomenon that has already taken the lives of other politicians, candidates, mayors, judges, and prosecutors, mainly from the coastal cities where drug trafficking is most present. Ecuadorian presidential candidate Otto Sonnenholzner denounced that a shooting took place near the place where he had breakfast with his family this Saturday.
In response to inquiries from the press, his campaign team did not specify whether the shooting was directed at the right-wing former vice president. The police and the government did not comment on the incident, as was the case with the complaint by the mayor of the coastal town of La Libertad, Francisco Tamariz, who said he was the victim of a shooting attack apparently by police officers, which left no victims. On Thursday, during the closing campaign, presidential candidate Daniel Noboa denounced an attack with shots against his caravan, from which he escaped unharmed. The authorities contradicted his version.
The situation of the prisons, where more than 400 prisoners have been murdered since 2020 in massacres between rival gangs that dispute internal control of the prisons and drug-trafficking territories, is another of the candidates’ concerns. Added to the crisis due to insecurity is the difficult economic situation that they will have to face when receiving an indebted country, with serious problems in the health, education and agricultural sectors, among others, which could worsen due to the effects of the El Niño climate phenomenon, which It is expected to arrive by the end of the year.
environmental plebiscites
The first elections in Ecuador with fully equal lists have only one woman among the eight presidential candidates. In the rest of the formulas, the role of women in the campaign was practically testimonial.
This Sunday Ecuadorians will also vote in two plebiscites on oil and mining in natural reserves. One, of a national nature, proposes stopping the exploitation of oil from Block 43-ITT, an important deposit in the country and source of 11 percent of the national crude oil production. The other, only for Quito, seeks to prohibit all types of legal mining in the Chocó Andino, a space of mountainous forests declared by Unesco as a biosphere reserve.
The polling stations will remain open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. local time, while those who live abroad will only be able to vote online, as long as they have previously registered. In addition to the presidency and the environmental consultations, the 137 seats that make up the National Assembly are at stake, whose composition will also be key to Ecuador’s political life, as was already made clear in the legislature that blew up in May.
The elections are held in the midst of a new state of emergency decreed by the government for the crime in Villavicencio. The Armed Forces were deployed throughout the country to support the nearly 60,000 police officers who will guard the polling places.
