Quito.- More than 13.4 million Ecuadorians are summoned to the polls this Sunday to vote in unprecedented general elections, which are being held in the midst of an escalation of violence attributed to organized crime that had one of its most recent episodes and tragic in the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.
In the process, which began last Thursday with the vote of prisoners without a final sentence, and continued on Friday with the vote at home for people over 50 years of age or people with disabilities of more than 75%, Ecuadorians will designate the successor or successor of the current presidentthe conservative Guillermo Lasso, and the 137 new members of the National Assembly (Parliament).
This after last May, Lasso dissolved the Assembly, with an opposition majority, when he was preparing to vote on a motion of no confidence against him for alleged embezzlement (embezzlement), which he denied, and requested the call for elections, protected by the constitutional remedy known as “cross death”.
For this reason, the winners must complete the Lasso period (2021-2025), which decided not to stand for re-election or present lists to the Assembly.
Thus, in the presidential race there are eight candidates: the lawyer and former assembly member Luisa González, candidate of the Correísta movement Revolución Ciudadana, led by former president Rafael Correa (2007-2017); former Vice President Otto Sonnenholznerand former legionary and security specialist entrepreneur Jan Topic.
Also in the race are the indigenous ecologist Yaku Pérez, the businessmen Xavier Hervas and Daniel Noboa, the independent lawyer Bolívar Armijos and the journalist Christian Zurita, who replaces Villavicencio and whose candidacy is still waiting to complete the registration process.
The votes that are consigned to Villavicencio -whose photo will be on the ballot-, will be awarded to Zurita, even if his firm registration is confirmed after the elections, which will have a second round on October 15 if none achieves no less than 40 % of the votes and a difference of ten points over the rest.
insecurity and violence
The candidates have focused their campaigns on various offers to combat one of the main concerns of the population: the unprecedented insecurity and violence that plagues Ecuador, attributed by the authorities to organized crime and drug trafficking, which made Ecuador pass in barely five years from 5.8 to 25.32 intentional homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022, the highest figure in its history.
Robberies, assaults, murders at the hands of hit men, extortion and kidnappings are some of the crimes that are heard daily in Ecuador, formerly known as a stronghold of peace in the region, but now converted into a key point for drug trafficking mafias to , through its ports, ship to Europe and North America large quantities of cocaine produced in its neighbors Colombia and Peru, the two largest producers in the world.
In this spiral of violence, the assassination of Villavicencio took place. to publicly denounce having received death threatspresumably from one of the leaders of these criminal gangs which the candidate had promised to fight without regard.
Villavicencio thus became the most representative face of this phenomenon that has already taken the lives of other politicians, candidates, mayors, judges and prosecutors, mainly from the coastal cities where drug trafficking is most present.
jails unleashed
The situation of the prisons, where more than 400 prisoners have been murdered since 2020 in massacres between rival gangs that dispute internal control of the prisons and drug-trafficking territories, is another of the candidates’ concerns.
Thus, the elections will be held in the midst of a state of emergency decreed by the Government after the murder of Villavicencio, so that the Armed Forces have been deployed throughout the country to support the nearly 60,000 police officers who will guard the polling stations.
Added to the crisis due to insecurity is the difficult economic situation that they will have to face when receiving an indebted country, with serious problems in the health, education and agricultural sectors, among others, which could worsen due to the effects of the El Niño climate phenomenon, which It is expected to arrive by the end of the year.
Two environmental plebiscites
On this Sunday, which will begin at 07:00 local time (12:00 GMT) and will last ten hours, until 17:00 local time (22:00 GMT), Ecuadorians will also vote in two plebiscites on oil and mining in nature reserves.
One, of a national nature, proposes to stop the exploitation of oil from Block 43-ITT, an important deposit in the country, source of 11% of the national production of crude oil, because it is located within the Yasuní National Park, considered the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon and one of the world epicenters of biodiversity.
The other, only for Quito, seeks to prohibit all types of legal mining in the Chocó Andino, a space of mountainous forests declared by Unesco as a biosphere reserve, located part of it within the metropolitan area of the Ecuadorian capital.
