Just forty eight hours before the Presidential elections in strife torn Ecuador on August 20, opinion polls are favouring the Leftist candidate Luisa Gonzalez as the leading one in the race as 13 million voters exercise their franchise on Sunday. Gonzalez is the only woman candidate among the eight Presidential candidates. She has the support of the former president Rafael Correa who ruled Ecuador for ten years bringing positive changes in the lives of the underprivileged people of this Latin American country.
As per the latest survey, Gonzalez got 29.3 per cent of the votes as against her next Yaku Perez at 14.4 per cent, Offo Sonnet loizener at 12.4 per cent and Jan Topic at 9.6 percent. As per the electoral rules of Ecuador, if no candidate gets more than 50 per cent or 40 per cent plus 10 points more than the nearest rival, there will be a runoff between the first two and the candidate with highest votes will be elected as the President..The runoff is scheduled for October 15 this year.
The snap elections were prompted by an unusual move from conservative President Guillermo Lasso, who became the first Ecuadorian leader to invoke “muertecruzada”, a constitutional measure that allowed him to dissolve the legislature and bring his term to an end. Lasso had been facing an impeachment proceeding, which he dismissed as politically motivated. But in the wake of his decision, candidates have stepped forward to replace him, pledging to fight crime and bolster the struggling economy.
Luisa Gonzalez, a protégé of former left-wing President Rafael Correa, held her closing event in Quito on Wednesday. “A firm hand against crime, against violence and against crime gangs, but a hand of solidarity and love for our people,” Gonzalez said at the Wednesday rally, in which Correa participated remotely from Mexico. Correa is still acting as the mentor of his left wing party and he is expected to return to Ecuador if Gonzalez wins presidency. Gonzalez was leading the polls ahead of Villavicencio’s murder, with about 30 percent support. If elected, she has promised to use $2.5bn from international reserves to shore up the struggling economy and bring back social programmes implemented under Correa, who has since been convicted of corruption. “We will take control of the country. It is the time to lift up the homeland with dignity,” she said at the rally.
Current president Guillermo Lasso was elected in 2021 presidential elections in a run off on April 11 by narrowly defeating the left wing candidate Andres Arauz who was a follower of Correa. Lasso dissolved the national assembly in May this year ordering snap elections following a constitutional crisis. Lasso nor anyone from his conservative CREO party is participating in the elections.
Former president Rafael Correa who was president for ten years from 2007 to 2017 was sentenced in 2020 for breaking company finance laws. Correa had denied the charges. He is living in Belgium in exile but he is having big influence on the activities of his supporters in Ecuador. Correa made lot of changes in favour of poor during his ten year rule. He still commands big respect from the electorate in this Latin American state.
In terms of voter concerns, insecurity is the top one, given that the country’s murder rate shot up 245 percent between 2020 and 2022. More than half of Ecuadorans polled said that fixing the country’s insecurity problem is their biggest priority. Only on August 9, the popular presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead at a campaign rally in Quito. He was very vocal against drug cartels and corruption. President Lasso also condemned the killing and said that organised crime was behind his killing.
Ecuador is located in the western corner at the top of the South American continent. Ecuador is named after the Equator, the imaginary line around the Earth that splits the country in two. Most of the country is in the Southern Hemisphere.
Ecuador is roughly the size of Colorado and is bordered by Colombia and Peru. The high Andes Mountains form the backbone of the country. Cotopaxi in the Andes is the highest active volcano in the world.
About 10 percent of the population is of European descent. Another 25 percent belong to indigenous or native cultures and the remainder are of mostly mixed ethnicity. Many of the native people are subsistence farmers and only grow enough food for their family. The leftwing candidate Gonzalez has a programme of giving rights and special assistance to the indigenous people.
Ecuador is considered one of the most diverse areas of the world. There are some 25,000 plant species, and over 1,600 known bird species. The search for oil has caused environmental devastation due to oil leaks and destruction of forests.
Ecuador has many geographical zones, including Andean peaks, tropical rainforests and – 1,000km (600 miles) off the coast – the volcanic Galapagos Islands, home to the animals and birds whose evolutionary adaptations shaped Charles Darwin’s theories.
In 2022, Ecuador was beset by rising gang violence linked to Mexican drug cartels, including shootings and car bombings. President Lasso declared a state of emergency in two regions and labelled such violent incidents “a declaration of open war”. Some analysts have suggested the country is on the edge of becoming a narco-state. . The assassination of one of the presidential candidates just before the August 20 elections is further confirmation of the terror of drug cartels in the country.
The coming presidential elections in Ecuador is being observed with keen interest by the other Latin American nations. In 2021 elections, the Left lost narrowly, since then the people’s discontent has risen against the Lasso regime. It is to be seen whether the presidential candidate Luisa Gonzalez can inspire confidence among nearly 13 million electorate in favour of her programme for a corruption free pro people government. (IPA Service)
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