Ecuador votes in the midst of violence
Aug. 18, 2023
Ecuadoreans head for the polls in an unprecedented snap general election on Sunday. The campaign has been marred by criminal violence — three politicians have been killed in the past month, including a presidential candidate who said he was threatened by the leader of an organized crime group.
“The winner faces a universal demand for safety, but how the incoming administration will fund crime-fighting promises remains to be seen,” reports the Associated Press.
Fears of violence could potentially dampen participation in the election, which takes place under a state of emergency that suspends civil liberties, with military guards for polling stations.
There are eight candidates in the running, with a runoff scheduled for October 15 if no one wins outright. The new president will take office on October 26, and will only serve for a year and a half, finishing the term of President Guillermo Lasso, who dissolved congress and called early elections in May. (AFP)
Polls before the assassination of Federico Villavicencio last week put Citizen Revolution candidate Luisa González, associated with former President Rafael Correa, in the lead. Other frontrunners include Jan Topic, a security-focused former solider, known as “Rambo,” Otto Sonnenholzner, a journalist and former vice president; and Yaku Pérez, an environmental activist who had a surprisingly good showing in the 2021 election. (AS/COA)
There have been no polls since Villavicencio was killed, notes Reuters.
To win outright, a candidate needs 50% of the vote or at least 40% with a 10-point lead over the closest opponent. If needed, a runoff election would take place Oct. 15.
Politicians have been challenged by the irruption of violence against candidates in a country where such attacks are novelty, reports the Washington Post. “There are no rules or protocol for protecting candidates. The government offers police officers for candidates, but it does not provide any armored vehicles.”
Presidential candidate Daniel Noboa was fired at yesterday, but was uninjured, reports Reuters. Authorities said it wasn’t armed attack against the politician, but rather gunfire that that took place as he made a campaign stop in a community near Guayaquil. (Associated Press)
Amazon oil extraction referendum in Ecuador
A referendum on Sunday will also ask voters to decide on the future of oil extraction in the Amazon, specifically whether they want oil drilling to continue in Yasuní National Park. The largest protected area in Ecuador, Yasuní is one of the most ecologically rich places on Earth.
“The outcome has the potential to redefine the extractive model in the Amazon and serve as a precedent for other regions,” reports Al Jazeera.
Ecuador could be the first country to limit fossil fuel extraction through direct democracy, writes Indigenous Waorani leader Nemonte Nenquimo in a Guardian opinion piece. Sunday’s vote “will either condemn to death or let Yasuní live. The importance of that alone is more than can be easily grasped. And yet the vote is even more than that: it is a vote on the possibility of limiting greed and plunder in the name of life and respect.”
The government has campaigned for drilling to continue — oil is the country’s most important export. “According to official estimates, the country stands to lose $1.2 billion in revenue a year if the oil is left underground,” reports the New York Times.
Drilling in the Ishpingo-Tabococha-Tiputini oil field began in 2013, after President Rafael Correa said a plan to raise international financing to leave the oil underground had failed. Parts of the field cross onto Yasuni land, home to the Tagaeri and Taromenane people, who live in voluntary isolation, reports Al Jazeera.
More Ecuador
“To curb the power of organized crime and violence, the authorities need to root out corruption, investigate ties to local and national politicians and pursue their money launderers and contacts in the state,” argues Will Freeman in a New York Times op-ed, pointing to Colombian judicial advances against dozens members of Congress who aided and abetted drug-trafficking paramilitaries.
Bracing for backlash in Guatemala
Guatemalans head to the polls on Sunday in a runoff election that could usher in a reformist, anti-corruption government. Movimiento Semilla’s Bernardo Arévalo is favored in polls, but could face obstacles from a political establishment loathe to lose power. (See yesterday’s post, and Wednesday’s.)
The vote takes place in the midst of “ongoing technical coup d’état that seeks to undermine the popular vote,” writes Vaclav Masek in Nacla.
Observers are bracing for an establishment backlash in the event of an Arévalo victory on Sunday —”new politically-motivated criminal cases, attempts to nullify votes, or worse,” writes Will Freeman in Americas Quarterly.
“Amid attempts by political actors and several government institutions to interfere with the election, sustained international scrutiny remains crucial to safeguarding the right to vote of all Guatemalans and ensuring a peaceful transfer of power,” said Human Rights Watch and WOLA today.
More Guatemala
The Marlin mine in Guatemala served as an early example of a transnational corporation, Goldcorp, and its state allies using the legal system to silence and criminalize Indigenous environmental defenders, reports the Guardian.
Regional Relations
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will participate in the BRICS summit in Johannesburg next week. Bolivia and Argentina, both hoping to join the bloc, are sending delegations. (Foreign Policy)
One of the BRICS major successes is the New Development Bank, now headed by Dilma Rousseff. “The appeal of the NDB in part reflects member countries’ critiques of major multilateral financial institutions, but it also exists to fill a funding gap. The World Bank and other similar banks, even when added together, aren’t big enough to fund all of the projects that lower- and middle-income countries require to meet the climate crisis and other development needs,” reports Catherine Osborn in the Latin America Brief.
A delegation of progressive U.S. lawmakers is on tour in Brazil, Chile and Colombia this week. They have framed their outreach as the basis for shifting U.S. foreign policy in the region away from “a Cold War mentality that prioritizes ideological alignment over shared commitments to democracy and freedom,” Rep. Joaquin Castro said in a statement. (Latin America Brief)
Brazil
A Brazilian hacker claimed at a congressional hearing that then-President Jair Bolsonaro wanted him to hack into the country’s electronic voting system to expose its alleged weaknesses ahead of the 2022 presidential election, reports the Associated Press.
Colombia
A businessman accused of financing killings by paramilitary death squads said he donated money to Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s electoral campaign last year — deepening a scandal involving alleged illicit campaign donations funneled through Petro’s son, Nicolás, who allegedly skimmed funds for personal use, reports the Guardian.
Haiti
“Haiti’s hunger crisis is now so acute that 97% of households in some areas around the capital are suffering from severe hunger, according to a new survey by the humanitarian organization Mercy Corps.” — Guardian
Region
Latin America’s democratic consensus at risk, InterAmerican Dialogue’s Tamara Taraciuk told Infobae, saying that the region’s democracies “are not being able to show people that they can solve their problems such as insecurity, inequality or poverty, so there is a disbelief: people do not believe in democracy, especially young people, and that It makes the job of fighting to protect democratic institutions very difficult, because this also makes people more willing to sacrifice guarantees in exchange for results, even if they occur outside the democratic framework.”
Many Latin American governments are actively trying to use global demand for lithium to industrialize and diversify their economies. “Chinese state-supported companies are better able to meet the requirements and make the promises Latin American governments desire and require,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Colombia
Colombian prosecutors “announced criminal indictments against 60 people, including dozens of former government officials, on graft charges tied” to Brazilian contractor Odebrecht, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Argentina
Alt-right presidential candidate Javier Milei’s libertarian economics zeal has resonated with Argentine voters. “The country has been in economic turmoil for so long — headed to its sixth recession in a decade amid triple-digit inflation and an ever-weakening currency — that it’s easy to see how proposals that might be seen as radical in other contexts come off as eminently reasonable here,” according to Bloomberg.
Milei’s rise has been characterized as the result of widespread frustration and anger at the political establishment. But it is better understood as a vote expressing “a hope of those who lose all hope,” said leftist politician Juan Grabois. (C5N)
Milei’s rise is part a global trend of anti-elite sentiment, a “sword of Damocles hanging over liberal democracies,” writes Juan Elman in Cenital.
Critter Corner
Meet the “rabbit reptile,” a possible precursor to the pterosaur — New York Times