Will Andrés Arauz Be the Next President of Ecuador?
- Details
- Published on Tuesday, 23 February 2021 04:14
- Written by editor
Will Andrés Arauz Be the Next President of Ecuador?
Vijay Prashad and Pilar Troya
In Ecuador’s presidential election held on February 7, 2021, Andrés Arauz won the largest number of votes but could not prevail in the first round against 15 other candidates; he won 32.71 per cent of the vote, short of the 40 per cent needed to win the election outright (a winner also requires a 10 per cent lead over the second-place candidate, which Arauz did achieve).
More than a week after that first round, it remains unclear which of the two candidates who most closely trailed Arauz will go head-to-head against him in the second round... on April 11. Both of these candidates – Guillermo Lasso and Yaku Pérez – each won around 19 per cent of the vote and await a recount to verify who will face Arauz. A Lasso-Pérez pact sought to remove Arauz from the runoff election’s ballot; this is of great concern for Ecuador’s democracy, although Lasso now says he has backed away from the agreement (Eds.: Lasso has just been announced as the other second round candidate, but Perez supporters are disputing the result).
Against all odds, Arauz won the first round conclusively. Till the very end, the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE) – the national election body – tried to postpone the elections, sowing doubts about voting during the pandemic and about the transfer of public funds to the candidates so as to make the process more equitable. The minister of defense – Oswaldo Jarrín – said in late January that the ballots would not be printed, even though his ministry had made an agreement with the CNE. Right through 2020, the CNE and other branches of the Ecuadorian government attempted to suffocate democracy by preventing the candidacy of both former president Rafael Correa and Arauz.
Continue reading
Follow the Socialist Project on Social Media:
The Bullet is produced by the Socialist Project. Readers are encouraged to distribute widely. Comments, criticisms and suggestions are welcome. Write to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Bullet archive is available at r0
Forward to a friend: this link
r39
powered by phpList
