France 24
Ecuador elects new president amid dramatic economic and health crisis
Ecuadorians go to the polls on Sunday to elect their new president, after four years in the tenure of Lenin Moreno. While the country is one of the most battered by the Covid-19 pandemic in the region, the campaign has been marked by the economic crisis and a climate of explosive polarization in a historically unstable Ecuador. After four years of presidency of the very unpopular Lenin Moreno, marked by austerity measures and a great popular uprising in 2019, Ecuador will elect a new president on Sunday February 7. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the electoral campaign between 16 candidates did not enthrall the crowds and was peppered with tensions.A left-right duel? Everything should be played between two men: on the left, the economist Andrés Arauz, backed by ex-president Rafael Correa, and on the right, former banker Guillermo Lasso, who is 65, is running for the third time. Ecuadorian law prohibits the dissemination of polls in the ten days before the poll. In the most recent, produced by the Market Institute, Andrés Arauz, of the Union pour l’Esperance (Unes) alliance, was credited with 32% of the voting intentions, against 21% to Guillermo Lasso, of the Create opportunities (Creo) “Strong polarization” Political scientist Simon Pachano predicts a “very tough” election due to “radically different positions”. “No more state intervention on the left, no more market on the right, the candidates are poles apart (…) it is worrying because it leads to a very strong political polarization”, told AFP this analyst from the Quito branch of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (Flacso). In a country which until 2006 was marked by political instability, this “climate of strong political polarization” can be “dangerous “, according to Gaspard Estrada. “First, the electoral authorities tried on several occasions to disqualify the candidacy of Andrés Arauz, then the members of the electoral authority were replaced within one month of the election, when transparent and rapid results will be needed to appease the tension “, analyzes for France 24 the political scientist and director of the Political Observatory of Latin America and the Caribbean (Opalc) of Sciences Po. An election in the first round seems however unlikely, the winner having to garner half of the vote plus one, or at least 40% with ten points ahead of the next. In the case of a second round, the votes obtained by Yaku Perez, the third man in this election, could play a key role: first Indigenous candidate to run for 15 years, this left-wing environmentalist is credited with 12% of voting intentions, according to the latest poll. End of the presidency of the unpopular Lenin Moreno, challenged by the streets Two figures are however absent from the ballot: the a current president Lenin Moreno, who is not running for re-election and will end a four-year term on May 24, and his former mentor, the former socialist president Rafael Correa, installed in Belgium. The former president (2006-2017) saw his dreams of running for vice-presidency were shattered when he was sentenced to eight years in prison for corruption in 2020. However, his face is omnipresent, even in the campaign posters of Andrés Arauz.His successor Lenin Moreno (2017 -2021) was illustrated by “an about-face vis-à-vis his former mentor. First of all economic, with the adoption of drastic austerity measures, but also by an unprecedented rapprochement with the American administration of Donald Trump and the International Monetary Fund “(IMF), explains Gaspard Estrada. After a plan of With the help of the IMF, the government instigated an increase in fuel prices. The result: thousands of Ecuadorians took to the streets in a social uprising in October 2019, rallying different sectors and causing the Moreno government to falter. The revolt ended. on a toll of 11 dead and 1340 injured and further damaged the image of the president. The deaths of Covid-19 in the streets of Ecuador “to the liabilities of Moreno” The current head of state also suffers from its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, which is hitting the country hard. “The images of Ecuador last summer shocked the whole world: there were overwhelmed hospitals and dead people abandoned in the streets. And all this is now the liability of Lenin Moreno “, continues Gaspard Estrada. In this country of 17.4 million inhabitants, the pandemic has killed around 15,000 people, according to official figures. An acute economic crisis The economic crisis which s is installed is also causing strong discontent. As the country depends on the price of oil, its main export product, the economy of Ecuador has plunged with the pandemic: according to the first estimates, its GDP is expected to decline 8.9% for 2020, or a loss of 6.4 billion dollars. “We have very bad economic and social indicators for the region, with an increase in poverty, which makes the climate of the countryside very tense “, explains the political scientist of the Opalc.” We can say that the pandemic is already having an impact in the campaign, which takes place in a rather gloomy atmosphere and does not seem to motivate Ecuadorians, if one believes the polls. “These showed a high rate of indecision, in a country where voting is compulsory for those under 65. But according to the researcher, “it doesn’t matter which one wins, between Andrés Arauz or Guillerme Lasso: Lenin Moreno will remain in Ecuador’s history as a parenthesis, without inheritance ► See also: 2020 in Latin America: an ocean of desolations and a resurrection
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