2024-03-12 18:14:11
Analysts and academics warn that the dispute will be repeated: Correismo vs. anticorrelism. Rafael Correa’s role would be ‘toxic’ for his group.
The presidential election calendar is already counting down. Ecuadorians must go to the polls on February 9, 2025, to elect the presidential pair and the assembly members for the 2025-2029 period.
If necessary, the runoff would take place on April 13, but for the academics and analysts consulted by LA HORA, at this time, with the approval ratings maintained by President Daniel Noboa, a scenario to consider is the victory of the “right” in the first round.
After the announcement of the electoral calendar by the authorities of the National Electoral Council (CNE), the pre-candidacies have already begun to present themselves, the first was the consultant and former Correismo candidate, Carlos Rabascall, who will now have the support of the Democratic Center. He followed by the lawyer Pedro Granja, who will receive the support of the Ecuadorian Socialist Party.
This same week, at a convention in the coastal region, the Pachakutik movement proposed the pre-candidacy of the president of Conaie, Leónidas Iza. And yesterday afternoon, Bolívar Armijos proposed his name for the presidency for the Amigo Movement.
So far, the four pre-candidates are people who have identified themselves as leaders of the left or progressivism, a fact that could become a decisive factor when dispersing the vote of the electorate that agrees with this trend.
Campaign will polarize again
Political analysts and academics, Simón Pachano and David Chávez, agreed that although it is still early, the electoral campaign will once again be polarized around the debate, Correismo vs. anti-correism, as has happened in the last electoral processes in the country.
In this sense, Pachano explained that “the campaign is going to be polarized again between Correism and anti-Correism. Anti-correism will be embodied by President Noboa seeking re-election; “If he does well, or for an Ecuadorian ‘Bukele’.”
The academic from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (Flacso) noted that the left will not be united in the presidential elections due to the strong rejection that the Citizen Revolution generates in an important sector of the left itself.
“Correismo generates rejection in a part of the left; Iza himself, even though he has had contacts with Correismo, is going to go on his own because the indigenous movement is not going to allow him to go with Correismo,” he specified.
On this point, the analyst and academic David Chávez specified that “the great political dispute in Ecuador in recent years has been Correismo-antiCorreismo, and although many people want to make it seem that it is not important, or that it has been overcome, this It is quite far from being true.”
Chávez added that the country’s electoral behavior in the latest electoral processes shows two “consolidated” trends.
“Ecuador has been having structurally solid political and electoral behaviors, there are trends, the case of Correismo is the most obvious, it has a high vote compared to the rest of the political forces, with a constant hard vote and important numbers that allow it to be in the political scene with a certain weight,” he said.
He explained that there has been “a solid right wing for several years, solid in support at the level of political and economic elites. He is not a person, nor a party, he is the trend.”
First round victory
For Chávez, the consolidation of the right-wing trend could reverse what happened in the last electoral processes in which Correismo has been the most popular in the first round.
“I think that the most likely scenario will be a second round between Daniel Noboa and Correismo and a possible option, which is completely unprecedented in the recent history of the country, seeing for the first time a right-wing movement of President Noboa, winning the election in first round,” he warned.
In his opinion, if the Government’s approval levels are maintained, “we could observe an inverted scenario; That is, a solid right-wing candidacy and a fragmentation of the vote on the left, with the exception that Correism would continue to be strong.”
Correismo in trouble
For Simón Pachano, one of the big problems in the Citizen Revolution is the impossibility of leadership being able to grow given the weight that Rafael Correa maintains over the organization.
“In Correismo there is a problem that is obvious and that is that Rafael Correa drags all of them down at the same time. He is the only figure there, but at the same time he is the stopper to block political careers,” he explained.
Pachano considers that the leaders of the RC “cannot have their own autonomous political career, come out with their own strength. That largely explains why Carlos Rabascall is leaving, because he very shrewdly says within Correismo I have no choice.
Mockery or strategy to divide the left
Human Rights activist, Pamela Troya, when analyzing the first four pre-candidacies proposed to the electorate, described them as “a dangerous and at the same time interesting game”, while questioning the origin and real purpose of these announcements.
For Troya, the four candidates have maintained a close relationship with the Citizen Revolution at some point in their political actions.
“I don’t see any sense in so many left-wing candidates. This would cause a dispersion of the vote and give strength to the right. Unless that is the strategy to support Daniel Noboa’s candidacy and that the leftist candidacies simply disperse,” he warned.
The leader and activist for the gender struggle pointed out that currently in Ecuador there are no true political figures on either the left or the right. “There are no political figures in general,” she stressed.
Troya recalled that the figure of the current president was not well positioned in the first round and is the result of the events that marked the early presidential race: the murder of Fernando Villavicencio and a good presentation in the first presidential debate, “where everyone They were fighting, he was the only one who looked moderately technical and calm.”
Source: Diario la HORA