2023-08-31 20:00:12
August 1989. In a Colombia that has declared war on Pablo Escobar, the presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan, destroyer of the mafia, is assassinated. August 2023, in Ecuador, the candidate Fernando Villavicencio is killed in the middle of the street, in Quito, on the eve of early general elections. “What Colombia experienced in the 1980s, Ecuador is experiencing today. Our country has been delivered to drug trafficking and sees the consequences., declared the former vice-president and presidential candidate Otto Sonnenholzner (right), the day after the assassination of Mr. Villavicencio. Former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017) affirmed, for his part, that “Ecuador has become a failed country”.
Little Ecuador, however, does not produce drugs: cocaine arrives from Colombia and Peru by land and leaves by sea to North America, Europe and Asia. A territory of transit for forty years, the country has become, with the help of the dollarization of its economy, a money laundering centre. It, in turn, bears the brunt of the global failure of the war on drugs.
See also: How does cocaine get into consumers’ pockets?
For a long time, Ecuador was defined as a haven of peace in a turbulent neighborhood. “Unstable, yes, but peaceful”, summarizes the political scientist Mauricio Jaramillo. At the turn of the millennium, three elected presidents (Abdala Bucaram in 1997, Jamil Mahuad in 2000 and Lucio Guttiérez in 2005) were overthrown in the streets, without bloodshed. Coming to power in 2007, Socialist President Rafael Correa had a new Constitution adopted in 2008 and financed, thanks to an unprecedented oil windfall, infrastructure and social policy. The country is regaining stability and Rafael Correa can credit the improvement in the country’s indicators. But, six years after his departure, the character – charismatic, arrogant and authoritarian – and his record, which remains disputed, continue to fracture the political spectrum. An undecided voter summed up in mid-August: “Under Correa, health, education, roads have progressed. Attacks on freedoms, debt, corruption, too. »
Painful social bill
Condemned by a justice that his supporters decry, exiled in Belgium, Mr. Correa remains very present on the political scene. “His” candidate, Luisa Gonzalez, came first in the first round of the presidential election on August 20, with 33.5% of the vote. But the victory of Ms. Gonzalez in the second round, on October 15, is not assured. The young entrepreneur Daniel Noboa (23.5%), son of one of the largest fortunes in the country, who plays the outsiders, could, in fact, capture the voices of all the “anti-correists”.
You have 54.46% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
#Ecuador #cocaine #transit #country #suffers #violence #drug #cartels