After Guillermo Lasso When Ecuador dissolved the National Assembly and called new elections on August 21, an early general election process took place.
In these elections, the two candidates who receive the majority of votes advance to the second round Luisa González the party Civil Revolution Movement (with 33.30% of the votes) and Daniel Noboafrom the ADN movement (with 23.66% of the votes).
In this context, last Sunday the second presidential debate between the two Ecuadorian candidates who will compete in the upcoming elections on October 15th.
Whoever wins will rule for a year and a half, as the new government will be chosen in May 2025.
The statements of the candidates
Although they competed for the presidency for a short time, proposals were made in the energy sector to mitigate the social and economic impact, taking into account the occurrence of “El Niño”, a phenomenon that worries the Ecuadorian population.
Noboa: “The El Niño phenomenon will affect all of us citizens, (…) we have a fairly clear housing plan, we will grant long-term loans at 4%, we also have to recover everything that has been stolen from us over time.” Gone “of the years”.
“We will strengthen public health and education, which cannot be privatized. We will also provide small and medium farmers with drainage systems and a pest control system to enable them to thrive. It is also important to provide emergency loans to help finance small and medium-sized producers.”.
Gonzalez: “The first is saving lives, the second is the economy, the third is infrastructure and the fourth is cooperation with the GAD.” (…) As for the economy, we will restore the credit lines, we will restore the debt and we will refinance the debt and forgive it for those who need it. In the infrastructure sector, we want to declare a state of emergency in the road sector in order to be able to urgently renovate roads, fishing and craft ports and bridges that could be destroyed. “We seek coordinated cooperation with the autonomous governments to provide rapid and timely assistance to our people.”
“Aside from thatwe will finance with money from multilateral organizations that have loans for this type of emergency, such as the CAF and the World Bank. There will probably be an impact of $2,000 to $3,000 million that we will get through these multilateral loans and another part through tax credits.”
There was also talk of illegal mining, a phenomenon that destroys natural resources and threatens the environment Amazon. Both spoke out against it and proposed measures to combat illegal activities.
Gonzalez: “Where there is a mineral resource, there is therefore a plan to exploit it.” There is a need for a government presence to protect the environment and orderly and regulated extraction. As far as regional impacts are concerned, there is already a norm in the Andean Community, namely Decision 774, which regulates illegal mining.”
“We want to increase the work around these regulations to take control, but I will also return the institutionality. We again want the Ministry of Energy and Mines to regulate the extraction of mining resources or the protection of the environment, and the regulatory and control authority. We also call for an audit of the concessions made to determine whether the environment is being protected. If the royalties are properly paid to the government.”
Noboa: “We must find a balance between environmental protection and economic benefits in order to provide social programs that Ecuadorians so desperately need. There needs to be stability between environmental protection and economic development. “I am strictly against illegal mining because the state needs to generate better revenue while protecting the environment.”
“Zero tolerance for illegal mining. There must be cooperation and information sharing between nations. Secondly, we must control mining in this country and legalize small-scale miners so that they can benefit from projects with productive support from the state. The state needs to strengthen its mining sector as long as it cares about the environment. “We need to have stricter environmental standards worldwide, but at the same time we need to finance our social projects.”
HE It is estimated that Ecuador will again have a budget deficit of %% of GDP in 2023. In this context, the candidates proposed measures to maintain the balance of public finances, ensure the dollarization system and promote sustainable social policies.
Noboa: “We have to create a competitive country, Ecuador is not one today.” We should have cheaper electricity and fuel costsa development of irrigation infrastructure for small farmers, without also forgetting a tax system that promotes job creation. “We will invest in electricity distribution and transmission, we will refine our oil to produce low-cost diesel in the already existing refineries.”
Gonzalez: “Currently these are the lowest rates in recent years, but on the other hand we propose to cut the tax exemptions, which are not efficient, by 30%.” “This is not just about the technical, it is about the political will “To stimulate the economy again and to restore employment with feasible measures.”
“They’ve been talking about dedollarization for 15 years, what I’m going to do is pump resources into the economy, “Increase productivity and production, everything that makes up the national industry, strengthen it to maintain and strengthen dollarization.”