A Growing Political Crisis: the Situation Pre-Elections
The election results are a political expression of the events that Ecuador has experienced in the last decade and a half; in particular, the shift to the right of Lenin Moreno, “Correista” (linked to former president Rafael Correa) candidate in the 2017 election. Moreno promoted policies recommended by the IMF, in particular the reduction of public spending and the liberalization of fuel prices, which gave rise to the mobilizations of October 2019 led by the indigenous movement led by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, CONAIE.
The health crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has been a living hell in Ecuador. This was the most affected Latin American country at the beginning of the pandemic, not only because of the number of reported infections, which according to the New York Times was fifteen times higher than the official count, but also because of the number of deaths caused by the coronavirus. The collapse of the health system in May last year was such that, in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s economic capital, dozens of bodies were abandoned in the streets due to the morgues being overwhelmed.
Of course, this was the result of cuts to the public budget following IMF guidelines to service Ecuador’s debt. While such scenes were unfolding in Guayaquil, Lenin Moreno made a payment of US$320 million in debt. Although the situation is no longer as dramatic as it was at the beginning of the pandemic, Ecuador remains in the pilot phase of vaccination while other countries such as Chile, Argentina or Mexico have already begun to vaccinate the high-risk population. And that’s not to mention the scandals linked to vaccination. The Minister of Health himself, Juan Carlos Zevallos, was forced to resign after he facilitated the vaccination of his relatives and even some university rectors close to him.
The above is key, as the elections have taken place in a context of a huge discrediting of the Ecuadorian regime. Already in May 2020, we saw warning signs with the abrupt drop in Moreno’s approval rating, standing at 14.7% at the beginning of his third year in office, which began in May 2017 with an approval rating of 63%. Lenin Moreno’s government will end with the lowest approval in the country’s history, standing below 10%. Needless to say, he has a disapproval of more than 90%. This explains why Lenin Moreno has not presented himself as a candidate for a second term as Ecuadorian leader.
The weakness of the establishment in Ecuador is such that 16 candidates have been presented for the presidential election, a clear sign of the political crisis that the country is going through. Ximena Peña of the Moreno regime (and the only female candidate) barely reached 1.53% of the vote. But contrary to the rhetoric of Correismo, which seeks to hold Lenin Moreno responsible for the situation by deeming him a traitor, the truth is that this crisis has arisen from the very government of Rafael Correa. Not only should we remember that Lenin Moreno was the candidate chosen by Correa himself as a successor, but also that Correa’s government oversaw the imposition of a series of extractivist projects, especially hydrocarbon ones in indigenous territories of the Ecuadorian Amazon.
This created a growing unease among the indigenous peoples of Ecuador, who saw how their lands were occupied and plundered. All this without any improvement in living conditions, which actually worsened as a result of pollution and environmental deterioration. This was one of the main reasons for the growth of discontent against Correa’s government, especially in the indigenous movement, which supported Correa during his first term in office in the hope of protecting their territories from extractivism.
An Unexpected Result, and a Clear Defeat of the Right Wing
It’s in this context — the Lenin Moreno government’s austerity measures and criminal health policy in response to the Covid-19 pandemic — that the elections took place on February 7. Andres Arauz, candidate of Correismo, has reached 32.7% of the votes, while there is a tie between the indigenous candidate Yaku Perez and the candidate of the right wing, banker Guillermo Lasso. The right wing and its candidate are indeed the main losers who have gone from obtaining 28.09% of the votes in the first round of the 2017 election, and 47.6% in the second round in 2017, to 19.74% in the election of last February 7.
Although this means that Lasso will finally go to the second round on April 11, Lasso’s setback is still significant if we consider that the difference with Yaku Perez has been minimal, only 0.36%, equivalent to almost 33 thousand votes. We must also take into account the maneuvers Lasso has resorted to at the last minute to secure the advantage for the second round and demobilize the social base of Yaku Perez. Particularly noteworthy is the breaking of the agreement he had established with Yaku Perez to promote the recount of 100% of the ballots in the province of Guayas, the largest in the country, and a recount of 50% of the ballots in another 16 of the 24 provinces of the country.
The above is not only evidence of the maneuvers of the right wing, specifically of Guillermo Lasso to sneak into the second round, but also the complicit silence of Andres Arauz and Correismo in the face of the allegations of electoral fraud made by CONAIE, Pachakutik and Yaku Perez himself in regions such as Guayas, Manabi, Pichincha, Los Rios, Esmeraldas, El Oro and Bolivar. Of course for Correismo and Arauz, it is more advantageous to compete against the banker Lasso clearly linked to the ruling class rather than face Yaku Perez who, despite his zigzags, above all represents a sector dissatisfied with the inconsistent policy of Correismo on the environmental-territorial issue of indigenous peoples, the right to abortion and the feminist agenda and the rights of the LGBT+ community. The recount of a 100% of the votes is a basic democratic right to truly combat the right wing.
Indeed, Yaku Perez has been the great surprise of the elections. The indigenous candidate has achieved an important electoral breakthrough demanding the rights of indigenous peoples, women and the LGBT+ community while criticizing the extractivist character of Correa’s economic policy. However, the aforementioned agreement with Lasso reflects many of Yaku’s own contradictions and his political zigzags to the right. In fact, in 2017 he openly called to vote for Lasso, although he has recently denied it, and has celebrated coups and coup attempts in Bolivia, Brazil, and Venezuela. Not to mention that he shares part of the economic policy of the right wing such as the elimination of the Foreign Exchange Outflow Tax as he proposed on Twitter last January 16.
Despite these real political issues, the result of Yaku Perez and Pachakutik undoubtedly represents an advance that shows the possibility of building a left independent of Correismo in Ecuador, particularly for the indigenous movement, the feminist movement and the LGBT+ movement. It is also a clear sign that it is possible to build a left alternative to the “progressive” reformist parties and governments that emerged on the back of movements in the 2000s and have dominated the political scene in Latin America. They promote an anti-neoliberal discourse, but without proposing to go beyond the limits of capitalism and the electoral terrain at a time when an economic crisis has devastated the region and the right has launched a new offensive against the working class, women and the oppressed.
For the Political Reorganization of the Ecuadorian Left and Social Movements!
The second round, to be held next April 11, is a starting point for the reorganization of the left in Ecuador. Although in this scenario Arauz’s victory seems almost a given, the advance achieved by Pachakutik is a sign that it is possible to build to the left of reformism, vindicating the demands for the expansion of rights that have not yet been won, such as marriage equality, the right to abortion and the defense of the environment and the territories of the native peoples. At the same time, a program for the radical transformation of society is needed, a socialist program that boldly and unambiguously proposes a clear and open offensive against capitalism and the right wing in a context in which the economic crisis, environmental deterioration and the pandemic threaten to worsen the already miserable living conditions of the oppressed.
For this it will be indispensable to build a democratic organization, in which political decisions are made by the organization as a whole and not by this or that leader who ends up determining the policy to be followed. Raising the demands of women, of the LGBT+ community, as Pachakutik has done, is a way to fight against the caudillismo characteristic of Correismo and Latin American progressivism, but it is not enough. In Ecuador, and throughout the continent, the unity in struggle of the indigenous people with the labor movement is a strategic precondition for the development of a movement capable of defeating the system.
This unity must be placed at the center of a new left. It is also indispensable to raise the demands of the workers of the countryside and the city, and to build with them a program that links the concrete struggle for these demands with the radical transformation of society, for a socialist transformation. This would in turn allow for greater political cohesion of the organization and greater rank-and-file control of its candidates, thus avoiding regrettable blunders such as those of Yaku Perez.
The struggle against extractivism and the defense of the environment cannot remain a mere denunciation; it requires a plan and a project of economic transition to break the chains of dependence to which world capitalism has subjected Latin America, turning it into a supplier of raw materials and cheap labor. This implies not only that the workers take control of the reins of the economy in Ecuador, but also a regional and global program. The struggle against extractivism is not possible in a single community, nor in a single country: it requires the alliance and solidarity of workers at the international level.
Extractivism is not a local problem but is part of the division of labor of global capitalism. Therefore, the only alternative against it, (which threatens not only indigenous territories but also the environment) is to build an internationalist alternative that raises this issue as part of its program, linking and articulating this demand with the demands of rural and urban workers, indigenous people, women, the LGBT+ community and the oppressed in general along socialist lines. This is precisely what we stand for in International Socialist Alternative.