[ Facing certain impeachment, on May 17 Ecuadors deeply unpopular
rightwing president Guillermo Lasso pulled the plug and dissolved the
National Assembly, calling for new elections.]
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ECUADOR’S DIVIDED ELECTORAL LANDSCAPE  
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Marc Becker
June 16, 2023
NACLA [[link removed]]

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_ Facing certain impeachment, on May 17 Ecuador's deeply unpopular
rightwing president Guillermo Lasso pulled the plug and dissolved the
National Assembly, calling for new elections. _

Environmental activist Yaku Pérez campaigns with the Pachakútik
movement in February 2021. He is now running as part of the
progressive coalition “Claro Que Se Puede.”, Photo: Juan Francisco
Beltrán / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 // NACLA

 

Known commonly as “muerte cruzada” or “mutual death,” the
innovative provision in the 2008 constitution allows the president to
dissolve parliament and rule by decree for six months until new
presidential and legislative elections are held. Those who win those
elections then serve the remainder of the terms in office until the
next regularly scheduled elections. In this case, that is until May
2025—almost two years off.

The Candidates

Well before Lasso triggered new elections, candidates were already
lining up to vie for office on the assumption that this might be how
his exit from government would unfold. Eight candidates
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for the presidential race by the deadline of June 13.

Former president Rafael Correa’s progressive Revolución Ciudadana
party out-performed expectations in the February 2023 mid-term
elections, leaving many to assume this slate was best positioned to
win in the new contest. Revolución Ciudadana selected the former
congressional deputy Luisa González
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its presidential candidate. Andrés Arauz, who came in second place in
the 2021 elections, will be her running mate.

Ecuador’s electoral law stipulates gender parity, in which electoral
slates must be equally divided between men and women. González is not
very well known, but she is thought to be close and loyal to Correa
and, like the former president, leans left on economic issues but
right on social issues.

The environmental activist Yaku Pérez
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who placed third in the 2021 elections, will run again, this time as
part of a coalition called “Claro Que Se Puede” (Of Course You
Can). The academic Nory Pineda, a native of Yaguachi on the coast and
vice-rector of Ecotec University, is his running mate.

Pérez is sponsored by the Partido Socialista Ecuatoriano (PSE,
Ecuadorian Socialist Party), Unidad Popular (Popular Unity), and
Democracia Sí (Democracy Yes), a political movement that former
Correa ally Gustavo Larrea formed in 2015.

Pérez ran in the 2021 presidential campaign under the banner of the
Indigenous-aligned Pachakutik movement and performed surprisingly
well. He garnered 20 percent of the vote, 10 more than any previous
Indigenous candidate for the presidency. That performance suggests
that he will do well in this upcoming election.

Former National Assembly member Luisa Gonzalez is a presidential
candidate representing former president Rafael Correa's party
Revolución Ciudadana. (Asamblea Nacional del Ecuador / Wikimedia
Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0)
Ecuador’s political left and Indigenous social movements are deeply
divided, a result of tensions that emerged during Correa’s first
presidential campaign in 2007 that are unlikely to ever be bridged.
Their preoccupation with battling another—rather than uniting around
a common enemy found in neoliberal economic policies—is what opened
the path for Lasso’s election in 2021.

That divide now runs through Pachakutik. A leftwing faction wanted to
run Leonidas Iza Salazar, the president of the powerful Indigenous
social movement Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del
Ecuador (CONAIE, Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of
Ecuador). Iza led sustained protests against Lasso’s neoliberal
policies in June of 2022 that almost removed him from office.

This year, Iza insisted on the expulsion of those assembly members
from Pachakutik who did not support the impeachment trial against
Lasso as a condition for being a candidate. He also demanded the
recognition of Guillermo Churuchumbi as the coordinator of Pachakutik
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Iza withdrew his candidacy when his demands were not met.
Subsequently, Pachakutik announced that it would not present any
candidate.

Meanwhile, a faction of Pachakutik aligned with the former CONAIE
president and former Pachakutik coordinator Marlon Santi announced its
support for Pérez. That faction accuses Iza’s allies of being too
willing to collaborate with Correa, whereas Pérez’s opponents
charge that he is too friendly to neoliberal and imperial interests.

In an effort to distance himself from both Correa and Lasso,
Pérez’s campaign pledges a “third way.” The divides within
Pachakutik and between Pachakutik and the broader left pose the danger
of once again opening a path for a rightwing candidate with minority
support to win the elections.

The most viable rightwing candidate is the economist Jan Topi
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a millennial business owner associated with the security sector who
some have compared to El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele. Topic
has bragged of being a mercenary in Ukraine and other military
conflicts. The traditional rightwing Partido Social Cristiano (PSC,
Social Christian Party) is backing Topic.

Other parties, including Lasso’s CREO (Creando Oportunidades,
Creating Opportunities) decided not to run candidates for either the
presidency or the assembly. Lasso could have competed in the elections
but wisely decided not to do so.

Muerte Cruzada

Lasso’s use of the muerte cruzada provision was controversial
because it was designed to resolve problems in instances of
legislative deadlock, not to bail out the political fortunes of a
deeply unpopular president.

After campaigning for the top office for twenty years, Lasso proved
incapable of implementing his rightwing neoliberal agenda once
assuming the presidency

After campaigning for the top office for twenty years, Lasso proved
incapable of implementing his rightwing neoliberal agenda once
assuming the presidency. He has very little to show for his two years
in office other than cuts in funding for social investments, including
for education, health, and basic services.

The impeachment charges that Lasso faced revolved around allegations
of corruption
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Lasso naturally denied. Underlying them was a growing sense of
insecurity among the general populace due to skyrocketing homicide and
other crime rates as powerful narco-trafficking groups fought for
control of territory.

During Lasso’s time in office, Ecuador has experienced the highest
inflation rates of the decade, the highest rate of homicide in
decades
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mass out-migration, and unprecedented drug-related activities.

For the social movement left, more concerning was Lasso’s trampling
on labor rights and the criminalization of protest. He engaged in
repressive responses to sustained demonstrations against his
neoliberal economic policies that delivered high taxes for most of the
population and privileges for bankers like himself and his corporate
cronies.

Lasso’s government fostered hate, racism, and discrimination.
Support for his leadership has been further eroded by rampant
destruction of the environment with his prioritization of petroleum
and mining extraction.

Social movements are now carefully watching if Lasso will attempt to
push through parts of his rightwing agenda by executive decree during
his remaining months in office. If he tries to implement what he was
unable to accomplish through the legislative process he will face
strong pushback.

The elections are scheduled for August 20. Ecuadorians will also be
voting on whether to prohibit petroleum exploitation in the
ecologically sensitive Yasuní National Park. Residents of the
Metropolitan District of Quito will also cast ballots on whether to
ban metallic mining.

Under Ecuador’s electoral law, a presidential candidate must win
either a majority of the vote, or at least 40 percent of the vote with
a 10-point margin over the nearest competitor. Otherwise, a run-off
election between the top two candidates will be held on October 15.

The victors will assume their posts on November 25, and serve through
what would normally have been the end of Lasso’s term on May 24,
2025.

The ramifications of the outcome will extend well beyond that
truncated term and the borders of Ecuador; a regional migration crisis
and the proliferation of criminal activity could destabilize the wider
region. With a recent regional turn to the left, Lasso was the Biden
administration’s closest remaining ally
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Latin America. A big question is whether that will continue to be the
case with a new administration.

Voters are faced with essentially three distinct paths: a return to
the neo-Keynesian policies of Correa’s 2007–2017 administration
that significantly reduced poverty and wealth inequality but trampled
dissent [[link removed]], represented by
González and Revolución Ciudadana; a continuation of Lasso’s
neoliberal policies that have harmed the poor and increased
insecurity, embodied by Topic; or a turn to Pérez’s Indigenous
environmentalism.

Will Ecuador remain in the orbit of the United States, join a regional
turn to the left, or chart a new and largely unknown path? In a
heavily divided and unstable landscape, the outcome is uncertain.

[_MARC BECKER is the author among other works of Indians and Leftists
in the Making of Ecuador's Modern Indigenous Movements (2008) and
Pachakutik: Indigenous movements and electoral politics in Ecuador
(2011). He is currently writing a book on Philip Agee and the CIA in
Ecuador in the early 1960s._]

_Thanks to the author for sending this to xxxxxx._

* Ecuador
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* Muerte cruzada
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* Indigenous Rights
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* Indigenous peoples
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* South America
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* Neoliberalism
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