2023-08-24 23:08:32
1. Citizens were not afraid to go out to vote despite the climate of violence and insecurity. The participation (82.26%) is the highest in the first round of the last two decades.
2. Correísmo continues to be the main political identity of the country. And, of course, this phenomenon has its electoral correlate. Every time there is a vote in Ecuador, any formula endorsed by Rafael Correa always emerges victorious in the first round. This time, he got almost 34%; in the year 2021 almost 33%, and in the year 2017, 39%.
3. It is not necessary to extrapolate with so much Manicheanism the result of a regional election to a presidential election. A few months ago correísmo won in the most populated provinces of the country (Pichincha, Guayas, Manabí, etc.) and in the main capitals (Quito, Guayaquil, etc.), but it must be remembered that in this instance there is no second round . And therefore it was enough for him to reach 27% of the valid vote at the national level for this enormous electoral success.
4. The idea of Spotify Democracy must be taken seriously in countries where we are facing a Failed State and with a high degree of instability and political fragmentation. In other words: Ecuador. Or Peru. In these cases, a high percentage of the non-politicized electorate changes the candidate like the song. And surely this explains that the second most voted candidate could have been anyone. This Sunday he played Noboa (the son of the billionaire Noboa). If the election had been last Sunday, maybe it would have been Topic. And if it were next week, perhaps, Zurita would turn out. In other words: there is no alternative candidate to correísmo with its own vote. And the same thing happened in 2021: on that occasion it was Yaku and Hervas, who added 35%; this time, the sum of both does not reach 5%.
5. The electoral campaign explains part of the result, but not all of it. In this age of shortcuts and high speed, the power of the joint is exaggerated and, consequently, deep ruts are eclipsed. Tik Tok will never win the battle against everyday life.
6. Insecurity matters a lot, but Ecuadorian citizens did not opt for the Bukele route. Topic only achieved the support of one in ten voters (passed to a valid vote, 14.67%). Because? Surely because other issues are also important, such as employment and salary, education and health, social policies, etc.
7. The indigenous block was left without a candidate; Yaku Pérez did not even reach 4% of the votes. And from now on, Leonidas Iza, the president of CONAIE, remains the only solid leader, with a leading role going forward, both electorally and politically.
8. In the absence of definitive results, the Legislative Assembly will once again be fragmented. Correísmo will be the first majority (approximately 50-55 seats out of a total of 137). And the rest, all with very little. For example, Noboa’s party will have a very weak bench (12).
9. Finally: facing the second round, not everything is the same as in 2021. The main differences are the following: a) Correísmo will be able to criticize the Lasso government in the face of the public in a more effective way than what he could do with Lenín Moreno (because he was considered by a part of the population as Correa’s ‘son’); b) correísmo has greater institutional power now than before (today it governs prefectures and important capitals); c) Luisa González is a candidate with a biography very different from that of Andrés Arauz; d) Noboa will seek to confront more against Lasso than against correísmo; e) we are facing a dispute between two young candidates (45 and 35 years old) and; f) The context has also changed: there is more violence, more insecurity, more poverty, more drug trafficking, more weariness.
Alfredo Serrano Mancilla is director of Celag, PhD in Economics.
#Notes #elections #Ecuador #Opinion