On Sunday, Ecuadorians went to the polls to vote in the sectional elections —to choose mayors and prefects— and participate in a referendum promoted by the country’s president, Guillermo Lasso, with whom he sought to make reforms to the Constitution on various issues.
However, according to the National Electoral Council (CNE), in both elections the results were not as expected by the president and his political allies. In the sectional elections, correismo and the indigenous movement took advantage, while in the referendum the ‘no’ prevailed in the eight questions that were made to the citizenry.
On Monday night, the vote count for the referendum still not over, Lasso already anticipated and admitted defeat. He said that the objective of the plebiscite was to listen to the people, “whatever their pronouncement may be.”
“When the people speak, it is the duty of the rulers to analyze, understand and accept it […] what happened on sunday it was a call from the people to the government and we are not going to evade that responsibility”, emphasized the president, in a brief message that he offered to the nation.
He said that, in addition to the Government, it was a call for the entire political leadership. “He has asked all the parties and groups to stop paying quarrels between us and to put ourselves once and for all to solve the urgent and concrete problems of our people,” said Lasso, who will be serving two years in office next May. .
Faced with this adverse outlook in the elections, the president called on the entire national leadership “to build a great agreement.”
He invited those who received popular support in the sectional elections to work together. “The delicate tasks that have been entrusted to them will require their maximum commitment and dedication, and for this the Government of Ecuador will have its hand extendedto collaborate with you in whatever is within our reach,” he added.
In this way, Lasso softened his tone, after last January, during an interview with a local media outlet, he described as “unpatriotic” those who promoted the ‘no’ in the referendum.
“Those who say vote ‘no’ are anti-patriaThey are those who are not interested in the future of the country, those who are not interested in the security of the Ecuadorian family, it is irresponsible […] He is unpatriotic, those who are happy if Ecuador does badly,” he said on that occasion.
Referendum results
According to the electoral body, with more than 97% of the tally sheets processed in all questions, the results are as follows:
1.- Do you agree with allowing the extradition of Ecuadorians who have committed crimes related to transnational organized crime, through processes that respect rights and guarantees?
2.- Do you agree with guaranteeing the autonomy of the State Attorney General’s Officeso that it selects, evaluates, promotes, trains and sanctions the servers that make it up through a Fiscal Council?
3.- Do you agree with reduce the number of assembly members and that they be elected according to the following criteria: 1 assembly member per province and 1 additional provincial assembly member for every 250,000 inhabitants; 2 national assembly members for every million inhabitants; and 1 assembly member for every 500,000 inhabitants residing abroad?
4.- Do you agree with demanding that the political movements have a minimum number of affiliates equivalent to 1.5% of the electoral registry of their jurisdiction and force them to keep a registry of their members audited periodically by the National Electoral Council?
5.- Do you agree with eliminate the power to designate authorities that the CPCCS has and implement public processes that guarantee citizen participation, meritocracy and public scrutiny, so that the National Assembly is the one that designates through these processes the authorities currently elected by the Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control?
6.- Do you agree with modify the process for appointing members of the CPCCS so that they are elected through a process that guarantees citizen participation, meritocracy, public scrutiny, carried out by the National Assembly?
7.- Do you agree that incorporate a water protection subsystem to the National System of Protected Areas?
8.- Do you agree that people, communities, towns and nationalities can be compensation recipients duly regularized by the State, for their support for the generation of environmental services?
sectionals
Regarding the sectional elections, the prefects and vice-prefects of 23 of the 24 provinces of the country, 221 municipal mayors, 1,307 urban and rural councilors, and 4,109 members of parish councils were elected.
In these elections, according to data from the CNE, the Citizen Revolution (RC), led by former President Rafael Correa, won the prefectures in at least nine provinces, including the three most populated in the country: Pichincha, Guayas and Manabi; to which are added Imbabura, Azuay, Sucumbios, Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas, Santa Elena and Canar.
These nine provinces add up to around 11.7 million people, totaling approximately 67% of the population of the entire country, which reaches 17.5 million.
In Pichincha, Manabi, Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas and Santa Elena they were reelected Paola Pabon, Leonardo Orlando, Johana Nunez and Jose Daniel Villao, respectively, who had already governed those entities since May 2019.
In Guayas, the president of the RC, Marcela Aguinaga, was elected; in Azuay Juan Cristobal Lloret, in Sucumbios Yofre Poma, in Imbabura Richard Calderon and in Canar Marcelo Jaramillo.
In addition, the RC was left with more than 60 mayoralties, including the two main mayoralties in the country, that of Quito, where Pabel Munoz won; and that of Guayaquil, where the victory went to Aquiles Alvarez.
Alvarez’s victory was classified by the RC as “historic”, since ended 31 years of rule by the right-wing Social Christian Party (PSC) in Guayaquil.
“They wanted to destroy us, but they did not realize that we were millions of seeds. After more than six years of persecution, taking away the legal status of our political organization, unjustly imprisoning our companeros and others, forcing them to live in the exile, in these sectional elections 2023 We show that we are the main and greatest political force in Ecuador. We are more alive than ever,” uttered the CR.
The correista movement also celebrated that the people said “no” to the Lasso referendum that, they consider, “does not solve the problems of insecurity, unemployment, poverty.”
“A Triumph of the People”
The Pachakutik party, the political arm of the Ecuadorian indigenous movement, won at least five prefectures, according to CNE data.
According to these results, Anibal Coronel won in the province of Bolivar, Lourdes Tiban in Cotopaxi, Tiyua Uyunkar in Morona Santiago, Manuel Caizabanda in Tungurahua and Jose Toapanta in Napo.
The movement celebrated these victories and also the results of the referendum, after promoting the ‘no’ vote. Leonidas Iza, president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), said that it was a “triumph of the people”.
“Those of us who felt the real needs and injustices said eight times no to the tricky consultation,” he said.
separate right
Apart from correismo and Pachakutik, the right-wing PSC, the great defeat in Guayas, was left with three prefectures, those of the provinces of Esmeraldas, Los Rios and El Oro.
The leader of that organization, Jaime Nebot, spoke on Monday night, pointing out that the citizens used the referendum to “punish” Lasso “and say no to his government”.
The PSC was an ally of Lasso, whom he helped to reach the presidency in 2021, but now they have distanced themselves. “We gave our votes to a man who betrayed us, by doing absolutely the opposite of what was raised in the campaign. It was totally possible to carry out an efficient and at the same time supportive administration, which would benefit all Ecuadorians,” Nebot said.
He added that Lasso’s economic and social policy has been “totally wrong, and liquidated the possibility of growth with a heartless ‘imposer’ (sic) policy that reduced income and increased expenses and the cost of living for Ecuadorians.”
He mentioned that “this ended his popularity”to the point that “the people consider anyone better than him”.
CPCCS and popular consultation
On Sunday, the seven main members and seven substitutes of the Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control (CPCCS)an organization that forms part, together with the Ombudsman and the Comptroller, of the function of transparency and social control in Ecuador.
Those seven members are: three women, three men and a representative of the indigenous peoples and nationalities, Afro-Ecuadorians or Montubios and Ecuadorians abroad.
On the women’s ballot, with 97.62% of the tally sheets processed, so far the chosen ones are Yadira Saltos, Mishelle Calvache and Nicole Bonifaz; among men, with a similar percentage of electoral cards counted, Augusto Verduga, Alembert Vera and Andres Fantoni are ahead; while for indigenous peoples and nationalities, the count is led by Johanna Verdezoto.
In addition to the sectional elections, the CPCCS election and the referendum, on February 5 there was also a a popular consultation in the rural parish of Seville Don Boscolocated in the Morona canton, in the province of Morona Santiago, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, to decide if they would become a canton (municipality).
With 67.74% of the tally sheets processed, the “yes” vote leads with 83.57% of the votes; which means that Seville Don Bosco, whose population is mostly Shuar indigenous, will become the 222nd canton of the South American country, after 20 years of struggle.
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Source: RT
