Ecuadorian elections (referendum, 21 April 2024)

[Oryxslayer]

So what happens now? If there is no delay possible, voter movements are about to get very wild. Hyperfixation on a single issue, crime, that was already rather dominant in the last potential week is not going to be favorable to certain candidates.  I would not be shocked if Gonzalez somehow failed to come in first place for example.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1691213407389896704?t=vhmn2G5i0kya-K1zTh...

This is going to be the only issue people vote on.

[Oryxslayer]

‘America Elects’ is proving again it isn’t a trustworthy account. While Briones has been indeed shot to death in park in Esmeraldas by two motorcycle-men, there has been no mention he was running for a parliamentary seat neither in the Ecuadorian press nor in the various messages of the RC leaders I have found, including the one of the RC Esmeraldas provincial branch announcing the murder.


Where it is becoming very suspicious is that there has been indeed a parliamentary candidate who has been assassinated in Esmeraldas (Rider Sánchez who was assassinated last month) but he was running for the pro-Sonnenholzner SUMA-Avanza alliance. Coupled with the fact that Agustín Intriago, the murdered mayor of Manta, is wrongly identified in the tweet as RC when he was actually a member of the right-leaning Mejor Ciudad local movement (and when his main rival on last February was the RC candidate), I think I’m beginning to suspect what ‘America Elects’ is trying to do and this isn’t very pleasant.

Thank you for this, given that this account is just one of the satellites of the proven excellent EUElects, I suspect it all comes from a place of ignorance than bias. The party affiliation system these accounts employ for presenting polling certainly comes from constant willful ignorance, because the overall supranational EU alignments barely function outside of a system where the parties on their own define such alignments. But they still do it anyway. 

[Oryxslayer]

RC was generally aloof to downright hostile towards social movements and activists, operating similarly to European social democratic parties, and is paying the price for it. How they are losing a winnable race given the mess the right has turned Ecuador into, well that’s their problem.

Amazing how campaigns filled with s•••posts and unicorn ideas is polling at 2nd place, voters really do hold the left to an unreasonably high standard.

I know I'm biting at the bait but....

There is two things absolutely wrong with this post. One, if anything, the Correaista's are held to a low standard compared to the other parties, kinda cause their main ideology is a cult of personality around Raphael. The specific leftist tenants are flexible depending on the time and place, which is why as you note they have in the past viewed grassroots movements with hostility. It is why their candidate this time around is lets say, less than stellar. Its also why things like environmentalism which is generally associated with the Left in the West, was part of Lasso's policy pushes previously. The past decade of politics should have made this all clear.

Two, RC was confidently winning round 1 in polls until the past week. I would not say they suddenly threw a winnable race. This election was always more about security and organized crime than other issues, but RC was still gliding to victory precisely because they are the present opposition and voters know what to expect from them, both the good ad the bad. However, recent assassinations of several politicians including a Presidential candidate have made security THE issue. The Correaista's don't exactly have a good answer for that type of election, and the candidates who have dramatically surged since the assassinations do. The rest of their platforms really don't matter at the moment. That's not RC's fault, they just don't have the right candidate in the right place at the right time.

[Oryxslayer]

My hot take going into the vote today is that theres a good chance RC doesn't come in first anymore.  In fact, for the first time in a decade there are now possible but not probable universes where the Correaists don't make the runoff. If it happens the two slots would go to one of the surging security driven candidates and Zurita who seemingly has a strange combination of sympathy, security,  and idealistic voters right now.

And obviously,  if any of this happens, it's not RCs fault. They expected a anti-Lasso election where they would easily get swept into office.  The 11th hour though has focused the election solely on security,  and Gonzales is not the right person for the moment.

[Oryxslayer]

Noboa, huh! Big if true. I saw people anecdotally saying he had a good performance in the debate but besides that he’s been a total non-factor for me. Very interesting to see how the rest of the night plays out, whether or not those polls are accurate.

Same. Especially if my recent expectation is correct that anyone who makes the runoff vs Gonzalez will easily consolidate the security vote for the runoff.  

Also no surprise on Yasuni, though I would be interested to see if the No vote correlates with anything.

[Oryxslayer]

who would be favored in a Gonzalez v Noboa run off?

Noboa IMO, though the final margin in this round may be interesting in that regard. What unites him, Topic, and to a lesser extent Zurita is that their vote totals have all dramatically increased since the assassinations. That suggests voters went to all of them for the same reasons, albeit with different initial conclusions. One would expect consolidation in a runoff.

[Oryxslayer]

With each new update, so far, Noboa has been closing the gap with González. The question is if the trend will continue.

Things have stabilized and a González vs Noboa runoff is basically certain. González is polling between 32-33% and Noboa at 24-25%.

I wouldn't be surprised in Noboa gains a bit before the count ends, the anti-Correa areas seemingly are taking slower than the average Correaista area, though mostly Guayaquil.


Also it looks like Zurita was the favored candidate of Indigenous voters post-assassinations, large overperformances in the interior relative to the national vote.   

[Oryxslayer]

who would be favored in a Gonzalez v Noboa run off?

Noboa IMO, though the final margin in this round may be interesting in that regard. What unites him, Topic, and to a lesser extent Zurita is that their vote totals have all dramatically increased since the assassinations. That suggests voters went to all of them for the same reasons, albeit with different initial conclusions. One would expect consolidation in a runoff.

Also apparently there was a conspiracy theory that Gonzalez had something to do with the assassination.

Gotta say, if i had to bet a candidate was behind it, it would be Topic - shady paramilitary guy tied to mafia party who gained in the polls after his assassination?

This is becoming totally insane.

Christian Zurita has just posted this on his Twitter account:

I share something that I cannot disregard: several months ago, my friend Fernando Villavicencio filed a complaint about a possible contract-killing-type attack. The surprise? He signaled assemblymen from the RC5 and PSC as the supposed ones implicated. Let’s share to be vigilant.

According to Zurita, Villavicencio formally requested in last April the Fiscalía to investigate a potential plan to assassinate him by hitmen, a plan he had been informed by unnamed legislators (Zurita says they wanted to remain anonymous, presumably because of fear of retaliation). The complaint of Villavicencio mentioned the names of five legislators who, allegedly, discussed the assassination plan:

- Pablo Muentes (PSC-Guayas)
- Ronny Aleaga (RC-Guayas)
- Roberto Cuero (RC-Guayas)
- Ronal González (RC-Los Ríos)
- Walter Gómez (RC-Guayas)

All but Aleaga and Gómez are seeking reelection.

Everyone of course will have their own "hunch" but this is the formal accusation by Zurita against (mostly) RC.

[Oryxslayer]

Here's a very rough map of where things stand in terms of leads. I guess I'll have more and better maps tomorrow when the count is finished, and I'm not tired. Compared to Lasso's round 1, Noboa is doing much better across the central Andean anti-Correa provinces, either winning or in a close second. Him and Zurita's voter appear to be correlated outside of the overwhelmingly indigenous rainforest states. This division among the security-influenced voters is why my prediction of RC finishing second didn't play out.

Noboa was leading in Santa Elena for most of the count, and remains 1% behind Gonzales, I find this particularly interesting cause its been a strong Correaista province in the past.

Gonzales's coalition is unsurprisingly very similar to Arauz's round 1 alliance in 2021, though with a worse results around Guayaquil.

Topic has a shockingly even distribution of voters. He received greater than 13% and less than 17% in all but 6 provinces: 3 just below, 3 just above.

[Oryxslayer]

let's start with the Yasuni referendum, because it does influence the later results. I would describe the results, which presently stand at 59% Yes to 41% No, as a widespread cross-partisan issue. The Anti-Correa Andean province's voters were the strongest supporters, but the Correaista coastal regions were not far behind. The one exception, as clearly obvious, is the two Northeastern Oil-Producing regions of Sucumbios and Orellana.



This opposition either drove turnout or significantly effected voter opinions in said region in favor of RC. The Correaistas have had success in the region previously - Sucumbios is part of their normal coalition  - but is not traditionally among the provinces with the fiercest supporters. Yaku Perez carried them both in the first round of 2021 when he swept the interior.

I wish to draw attention to that result because it highlights the changes underneath the surface between Arauz's and Gonzalez's coalitions. Both were very similar overall, but Arauz's coalition was much more polarized. Gonzalez improved basically everywhere, but especially in the northeast. She however had a weaker result in the greater Guayaquil region. This loss of voters more or less canceled out the voter gains everywhere else.

Compared to the initial provincial winners map I posted above, the final count flipped two states in favor of Gonzalez: Azuay in the south from Noboa and Morona Santiago in the interior from Zurita. But first place doesn't exactly matter in a multi-ticket round-one, what matters in the distribution of voter support.



Noboa's best results were in the Anti-Correa favoring Andean provinces. In contrast to Lasso though his coalition was much less concentrated in urban areas. He also got a strong home-province boost from Santa Elena, a usually strong-Correaista coastal province.



Villavicencio's Zurita's coalition by contrast is the most polarized. One suspects the accusations against RC must have played an impact in the Correaista strongholds, where he relieved limited support. He was the favored candidate of Indigenous groups, but obviously not to the extent of Yaku Perez previously. His support among voters in the Andean provinces roughly correlates with Noboa, suggesting that they both pulled from the same voter pool in said provinces.



As I noted earlier, there is no point to to mapping Topic's coalition, because there was zero voter concentration. His voter share was almost perfectly evenly distributed, unusual for a ticket that wins >10% of the vote in any election anywhere.

[Oryxslayer]

it's looking a lot closer now right? I think González could take this

The debate (or something else recently? but I suspect the debate) did seemingly cause a 3-5 point swing towards RC, which means Gonzales does now have a lead in a poll that previously had Noboa ahead, and a slightly wider lead in the only one that had her leading previously. With the election in under a week, that would seemingly suggest a closer result than the first round implied.