Until three months ago, no one expected parliamentary elections in Ecuador this year. The early call, announced by President Guillermo Lasso in May, took the whole country by surprise, a sensation that only grew as the weeks went by. This Sunday, 13 million Ecuadorians will vote in a first round marked by the assassination of one of the presidential candidates during the election campaign and by insecurity. With many undecided, the outcome is difficult to predict, although the most likely outcome is that the next president will be decided in a second round on October 15. In order not to lose track on this atypical election day, these are some important points that will determine the election.
The assassination of Villavicencio
The severe security crisis that Ecuador is going through showed its greatest potential in this election campaign. The assassination of candidate Fernando Villavicencio at the end of a meeting in the capital, Quito, paralyzed the entire country. If not even a presidential candidate was safe, then who was? Villavicencio based his program on the frontal fight against corruption and drug trafficking and had publicly denounced threats against him from organized crime, but nothing stopped hitmen from shooting at his car ten days before the elections. Authorities arrested six Colombians in connection with the attack, although investigations have not yet confirmed his death. Nor is it the first assassination attempt on a politician: On July 23, the newly elected mayor of Manta, the country’s third-largest city, was assassinated.
A man lights a candle around a photo of assassinated candidate Fernando Villavicencio. Dolores Ochoa (AP)
The polls
The latest polls were released a day before the assassination, so it is not possible to predict whether the assassination might have swayed voting intention. Until then, the Correísmo candidate Luisa González was at the top of all polls, albeit far from winning the first ballot. Doubts about the second candidate, running for the presidency in October, multiplied. The unofficial polls that the parties are conducting behind the scenes these days, and which the law prevents their publication, bring Otto Sonnenholzner, former vice president of Lenín Moreno (2017-2021), and Jan Topic, the so-called Ecuadorian Bukele, closer together in second place . The two have committed to aggressive Salvadoran President-style policies to end organized crime and insecurity, which are already the top concerns of Ecuadorians.
The power of the undecided
Any candidate could surprise, like the indigenous Yaku Pérez or Daniel Noboa, 35, son of the businessman and five-time presidential candidate Álvaro Noboa. In recent measurements, up to 40% were undecided, which was enough capacity to effect anything in the results. Will there be a Villavicencio effect? The assassinated candidate didn’t have many opportunities to advance to the second round, but his death may have swayed votes in favor of his movement, now led by his friend and journalist Christian Zurita. Villavicencio’s name and face will continue to appear on this Sunday’s ballot.
The possible return of Correísmo
Luisa González supporters attend her closing campaign in Quito. Jose Jacome (EFE)
There is no exile more present in his country than Rafael Correa in Ecuador. The former president has lived in Brussels since 2017 and has not set foot in Ecuador because he would face jail on a bribery conviction. But for voters, it’s like having his name on the ballot this Sunday. “I’m voting for Correa,” people say, saying they will vote for Luisa González, the candidate of the former Belgian vice-president’s movement. When Lasso announced the dissolution of the assembly and the call for early elections, Correísmo had just celebrated his biggest victory in local and regional elections in recent years. Correa himself admitted that Lasso’s decision surprised him because he felt he was being offered victory on a platter.
Lasso, the disappeared
The President told EL PAÍS the day after his announcement that he had chosen to “reign in purgatory for six months instead of two years in Hell”. Until then, never in the history of Ecuador had a president invoked an article in the constitution that, under the name of “death on a cross,” allowed the assembly to be dissolved and elections to be brought forward. In fact, the next president will only rule until the end of the current term, i.e. 18 months. Lasso made this decision to avoid the political process Parliament was facing for alleged corruption, and although he toyed with his possible candidacy for several weeks, he resigned and not even his party put forward a candidate for the electoral race .
insecurity and fear
Ecuadorians admit they are afraid. He had never experienced a violent situation like this before, which has worsened over the past three years. Assassins, prison massacres, dismemberments and shootings are the order of the day in a country previously thought to be peaceful. The Mexican and Colombian drug cartels have transformed Ecuador from a transit country into a hub of operations, unleashing violence in the process that some are beginning to remind of Colombia in the 1980s. The murder of Villavicencio also links organized crime with politics. So far, 4,574 violent deaths have been recorded in 2023, while 2022 ended with the highest number in history at 4,600, double the rate of 2021. At the current rate, the crime rate could reach a rate of 40 by the end of this year Murders per 100,000 people, making Ecuador one of the most violent countries in the world.
Soldiers search student backpacks in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Martin Mejia (AP)
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