By Francesco Martone*
Last weekend Ecuador went to the polls to elect its next president and parliament after the decision taken by outgoing President Guillermo Lasso to dissolve Congress early by applying the ‘muerte cruzada’ mechanism provided for in the Constitution.
The main reason for this decision was Congress’ determination to proceed with the ‘impeachment’ procedure against him for a number of corruption cases in which he was more or less directly involved. In reality, since the beginning of his mandate, Lasso has shown himself incapable of managing a country in the grip of the social and economic consequences of the COVID, as well as the spread – in recent years – of organised crime gangs linked to the Mexican cartels of Sinaloa and Jalisco. Cartels that control important areas along the coast of the country from which cocaine shipments destined for Asian and European markets depart. Lasso was faced with a real internal war between the gangs for control of markets and territory, which initially developed within the prisons, and then spread to various cities and regions, where a state of emergency has been in force ever since.
A banker from Guayaquil, and close to Opus Dei, Lasso has distinguished himself for economic and financial policies aimed at favouring his ruling elites, and has not hesitated to use the hard hand of violent repression against the indigenous and social movements that had marched on Quito in June last year to demand social policies and respect for their rights. A demand that was all encapsulated in a package of proposals put on the negotiating table with the government, a condition to stop the street mobilisations. Negotiations that were then stalled due to the government’s lack of political will. It should be stressed that the indigenous movement in Ecuador (CONAIE – Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities Organisations of Ecuador), has always played a decisive role as a social and political actor, much more so than in other Latin American countries.
CONAIE has always been the catalyst of social mobilisations, far beyond the indigenous nationalities it represents, and through its political arm Pachakutik has expressed presidential candidates, participating in the past in the government that followed the ousting of President Mahuad in early 2000, when the country mobilised against his choice to dollarise the economy. In the last local elections last year, Pachakutik obtained important results, second only to the UNES political line-up, which referred to ex-president Rafael Correa, architect of the ‘Revolución ciudadana’ that governed the country for two terms, only to find himself forced into a sort of exile in Belgium to escape various convictions for alleged corruption cases involving him and his entourage. Among them was the then Vice-President Jorge Glas, later sentenced to prison for a corruption case linked to the activities of the Brazilian company Odebrecht. A case that, just a few days before the elections, was reopened by an important ruling by Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court, which cast doubt on the evidence adduced against Odebrecht.
In a partially surprise result yesterday in the first round of the elections, the candidate of the ‘progressive’ Revolución ciudadana party, the outgoing parliamentarian (Correista) Luisa Gonzales, obtained just over 30% of the votes, followed by Daniel Noboa, also a parliamentarian and young son of the evergreen of Guayaquil politics, ‘Alvarito’ Noboa, a monopolist of the banana sector, an expression of part of the right-wing economic elites of the coast and eternal candidate for the presidency of the country. Daniel Noboa, who describes himself as centre-centre-left and is supported by a coalition that includes MOVER, a party created in the aftermath of then-President Lenin Moreno’s departure from the ranks of Correismo, contested for second place with two other candidates. One was the outsider Jan Topic, an entrepreneur and ex-legionnaire, a sort of Ecuadorian version of El Salvador’s President Najib Bukele, distinguished for his determined and unscrupulous methods, disrespectful of human rights, with which he pursued organised crime in the country. Another candidate was journalist Christian Zurita, who took the place of candidate Ferdinando Villavicencio, a journalist and parliamentarian who had always been committed to the fight against corruption and who was assassinated last week at an electoral event in Quito.
A surprising result that of Noboa. Probably, a good part of that 50% of undecided before the presidential televised debate decided for the 35-year-old candidate, who presented himself at the appointment with a more convincing tone and language than the other candidates, not characterised by the classic polarisation between Correism and Anti-Correism, which has characterised the political debate in recent years. Moreover, many analysts agree that since his election campaign started quietly, he did not find himself at the centre of controversy and attacks from his opponents, thus being able to express his political proposal in a less confrontational manner. While the leitmotif of Luisa Gonzales’ election campaign was all backward-looking, evoking the achievements of Correa’s Revolución ciudadana, Noboa, trained in the academic sectors of the United States, insisted on the central themes of security and social investment, even proposing an ‘auditoria’ of the country’s debt. One of the historical workhorses of altermondialist movements in the past.
As for the other contenders, Javier Hervas, agribusiness entrepreneur and candidate of the social-democratic party Izquierda Democratica, who in the last electoral round obtained an astonishing 11%, disappears definitively from the political scene. The ambitions of Otto Sonnenholzner, former vice-president with Lenin Moreno (president who preceded the outgoing Lasso and who was initially the candidate of Correismo but then gradually moved to the right), also vanished.
It is interesting to note that the vast majority of presidential candidates come from the business sector, often supported by political cartels created on purpose and without real territorial roots. Disappointing was the result of the indigenous candidate Yaku Perez, who, in the last round of elections, was on the verge of winning a runoff with presidential candidate Andres Arauz, now in partnership with Luisa Gonzales. At the time, Perez had obtained the support, albeit unconvinced, of CONAIE, which wanted to put forward its president Leonidas Iza instead. This time he presented himself with a formation of small left-wing parties without the support of the country’s most important indigenous (and social) movement, but only with that granted out of time by its political expression Pachakutik, which had long been plagued by deep internal conflicts and from which Perez had distanced himself.
Another element to be taken into account is that Correismo, after an important affirmation in the last administrative elections, is in fact the majority party in the country and in the new Congress. Nonetheless, it is almost a foregone conclusion that in the runoff scheduled for 15 October next (given that Luisa Gonzales did not reach either 50% of the vote or 40% with a 10-point gap from the second, as required by electoral law), all the votes of the right-wing and ‘anti-Correist’ candidates will converge on Noboa, who will therefore have a great chance of taking office in the presidential palace of Carondelet. Certainly a Pyrrhic victory of sorts, given that in this case the bill to be paid to the right-wingers will be very high, and given that the country will almost immediately be in electoral campaign for the next presidential elections in 2025.
This possible victory of the right-wingers in the country appears to be at odds with the contemporary result of the runoff for the presidential elections in Guatemala, which saw the historic affirmation of the progressive candidate, but it appears to be in tune with the resounding affirmation of the right-wingers in the primary elections in Argentina, and with the crisis that the progressive government of Boric is going through in Chile. Another discourse for the situation in Bolivia, where in view of the upcoming presidential elections the MAS movement appears split, between support for the current president Arce and the candidacy of its historical founder Evo Morales. An experience, the Bolivian one, that has been an important reference for indigenous movements in Ecuador and across the continent.
Alongside the vote for the presidential and congress elections, two important referendums were held, one of national importance, against oil extraction in the ITT Yasuni Amazon zone, and one local and limited to the metropolitan territory of Quito, against the expansion of mining activities in the Andean Chocó. In both cases the YES vote won. The concomitance of these consultations with the political elections should certainly be contextualised against the backdrop of the increasing violence induced by the narcos, who, with the murder of Villavicencio and other rather suspicious attacks and shootings in which other candidates, including Otto Sonnenholzner, were more or less directly involved, have entered the electoral scene in a big way, bringing their influence to bear.
However, it shows that there is another country that has gone to the polls. Those millions of Ecuadorians who have decided on the future of the production model, and for the exit from the extractivist monoculture. This is no small matter, and has global significance given the historical dependence of the country’s economy on the extraction and export of fossil fuels and minerals. This does justice, at least as far as ITT Yasuni is concerned, to the perseverance with which the country’s social and ecological movements have worked since the proposal was launched ten years ago, during Rafael Correa’s presidency. Who, if he initially seemed to be in favour, later, in a quick reverse, decided to offer that oil-rich territory to multinational oil companies. And at the same time delegitimising and preventing the holding of the referendum, for which the ecological and social movements had worked, collecting over 750,000 signatures throughout the country. These signatures were then arbitrarily invalidated by the president, who launched a harsh campaign to criminalise the movements.
After years of legal wrangling, the Constitutional Court decided a few months ago to validate the signatures and then to convene the national referendum. The result of the consultation on ITT Yasuni shows a transversal country, (some of the ‘right-wing’ candidates conveniently voted Yes in the referendum on Yasuni), which is in fact transformed in its role. A country made up of voters who voted Yes to Yasuni and Chocó Andino, for their constitutionally recognised rights to nature, for their unique endangered species, for the indigenous and peasant communities who care for them. Those millions of Ecuadorians became ‘guardians’ and ‘custodians’, voting on behalf of those ecosystems…they voted el ‘oso de anteojos’, they voted the forests, the birds, the monkeys, the orchids, the trees, the micro-organisms, the air they breathe and the water that flows uncontaminated. They voted through their custodians and guardians, demanding their protection. A kind of self-defence exercise, an inter-species alliance. An ‘eco-social’ bloc that will undoubtedly pull its weight against any future government of the country.
The elections thus hand us two countries, that of criminal violence and that of extractivist violence in comparison. The victory of Yes, in Yasuni and Chocó Andino, opens the door to another possible Ecuador. A hypothesis that seems so remote today in the context of rampant violence, but which will become indispensable for the future, not only of the country but of the entire planet
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*Chair of the Judges’ Assembly of the International Tribunal on the Rights of Nature and a founding member of Greenpeace Italy, and co-founder of the arts and activism platform A4C- Artsforthecommons. He was a member of the Italian Senate with the Greens and then with the European Left for 7 years. In 2015 he co-founded In Difesa Di an Italian network in support of human rights defenders that he coordinated until 2020. He is based in Italy and Ecuador. Article sent to Other News by the author.
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