Ecuadorian elections (referendum, 21 April 2024)

[Sir John Johns]

Trying to catch up on the delay:

* The Electoral Dispute Tribunal (TCE) has rejected the appeal filed by the RC against the presidential candidacy of Xavier Hervas, on the basis the plaintiff has failed to provide evidence demonstrating the RETO nominee is owning assets or capitals in a tax haven. The document presented by the RC to back its complaint and mentioning a ‘Xavier Hervas’ individual as the owner of an offshore company has been ruled as inconclusive as it seemingly concerns a homonym as the full name isn’t matching the one of the RETO presidential candidate.

Hence, Hervas is the eighth and last presidential candidate to be certified.



* The TCE must re-examined a challenge (also filed by the RC) against the candidacy of Patricio Carrillo as the top candidate on the Construye national list for parliament. In a first ruling, the TCE had rejected the complaint lodged by the RC president, Marcela Aguiñaga, on a technicality (Aguiñaga provided incomplete documentation). An appeal is now being examined but Carrillo has requested and obtained the disqualification of the first electoral judge in charge of the case as he has previously posted on Twitter harsh comments to denounce in 2022 the appointment of Carrillo as an interior minister.

A new judge has to be designated to examine the complaint lodged by Aguiñaga but, in the meantime, the printing of the 13.2 million of ballots for the election of national assemblymen is suspended awaiting the final decision in the case and putting at risk the holding of the legislative elections on the planned date. This also means that, while the official campaign for the election of the president has already started, the one for assemblymen is still pending and will be shorter.

Having been censored by the National Assembly few months ago, Carrillo is banned from holding a public office in the next two years: whether such ban means he is also ineligible remains unclear and should be resolved by the electoral authorities. Furthermore, even if ultimately ruled as eligible, it is also uncertain whether Carrillo, if elected, could take his seat (a ruling from the Constitutional Court may then be necessary).

In case Carrillo is denied to take his seat, it would be then his alternate, Nataly Morillo, who would be sworn in as a legislator. A former journalist, Morillo is that kind of people who have managed to hold almost continuously state offices in spite of changes of presidents: she has indeed served as an adviser in communications area during the presidential administrations of Correa, Moreno and Lasso (as an adviser to Carrillo in the latter one).



* The CNE has rejected the challenge filed by the national leadership of the PSE against its Cañar provincial branch over the selection of Virgilio Saquicela as a PSE candidate for a provincial assemblyman seat. The PSE is hence stuck with a candidate its leadership has disapproved of, not the best way to appear as a serious political actor.



* Speaking of what, Yaku Pérez has been forced to publicly disowned Tito Tomalá, the top candidate (he reportedly himself designated) on the Claro que se puede alliance legislative list in Santa Elena province. Indeed, it has been confirmed that Tomalá, a high profile surgeon, is currently investigated by the Chilean justice for medical malpractice after one of his cosmetic surgery he performed in Chile ended in 2019 in the death of the patient.

Tomalá has became infamous in 2011 after his participation in a TV talk show during which, when (already) questioned over presumed medical malpractice in his surgeries, he threw a tantrum and insulted the journalist and an other participant.

This is however too late for Claro que se puede to replace Tomalá on the list. Again, this is not very serious for Pérez and his alliance, who have been unable to run basic checks on the people they are running for National Assembly.



* Rider Sánchez, a candidate for a seat of provincial assemblyman in Esmeraldas for the SUMA-Avanza alliance (after having unsuccessfully ran for the prefecture as the candidate of CREO in last February), has been shot to death on last Sunday while driving his car in Quinindé (Esmeraldas province). The police is investigating the murder as the consequence of ‘common delinquency’, possibly as part of an attempted armed robbery, and seems to rule out a political motive or the involvement of drug cartels.



* The CNE has made official the decision to combine the local consulta on mining in the Chocó Andino with the extraordinary general elections and the nationwide referendum on Yasuní. So, in addition to vote for the next president and parliament and on the end of oil extraction in Yasuní, the electors in the canton of Quito will on next 20 August vote on four distinct questions about prohibition of metal mining in six parishes in the canton (Calacalí, Gualea, Nanegal, Nanegalito, Nono and Pacto):

1/ prohibition of artisanal metal mining
2/ prohibition of small-scale metal mining
3/ prohibition of medium-scale metal mining
4/ prohibition of large-scale metal mining.



* Jan Topic is facing these last days his first major controversy (even if blown out of proportion) and it is an unexpected controversy for a guy wanting to emulate Bukele policies in Ecuador:

https://twitter.com/EcuadorPlay/status/1681842449235288067

We don’t know what to do. Presidential candidate Jan Topic, together with Pedro Freile, smoked marijuana during a podcast. Freile said it is his first time, Topic didn’t say anything.

Topic has clarified that he and Freile (one of his main campaign advisers) weren’t smoking marijuana (which is illegal) but CBD (which is legal in Ecuador). The exact same controversy in the exact same podcast happened in last March with former president Lucio Gutiérrez, who was also incited by the host to smoke CBD. As Topic referred to Gutiérrez in the video, it seems he was totally aware of what to expect and his gesture was probably deliberate.

Yet, in the face of the uproar and public discontent of his PSC sponsors, he has to backtrack and acknowledge that his attempt ‘to differentiate CBD from marijuana’ hasn’t been made ‘the correct way’. Possibly, a major communication mistake: his rivals will now portray him as a pot-smoker (I doubt the average voter seeing the video will ‘differentiate CBD from marijuana’) and will point out his attitude is contrary to his posture as tough on crime and inconsistent with the PSC’s zero tolerance policy for drug use: the right-wing party is for example pushing for the complete elimination of the Drug Possession Table (tabla de consumo: it is setting a maximum quantity of a certain drug a person can carry beyond which he/she would be prosecuted for drug selling – the program was introduced in 2013 by the Correa administration which, two years later, severely reduced the quantity of drug it is possible to carry to cease being considered as a drug user and being viewed as a drug seller).

[Sir John Johns]

How right wing is Sonnenholzner by the way?

Sonnenholzner is one of the various Ecuadorian politicians who signed in 2021 the VOX-sponsored Madrid Charter whose purport is ‘to defend freedom and democracy’ in the ‘Ibero-sphere’ against ‘communism’. Non-Ecuadorian signatories are including people like Eduardo Bolsonaro, José Antonio Kast, Javier Milei, Rafael López Aliaga for Latin American countries and Giorgia Meloni, André Ventura or Marion Maréchal for European countries.

I’m not sure to which extent Sonnenholzner actually adheres to a far-right ideology, considering that ideological commitment has never been the strongest point of Ecuadorian politicians and there is the key issue of dealing with an unruly parliament and state apparatus and with the eternal divisions of the Ecuadorian right, rendering the implementation of an ambitious political agenda by a potential Sonnenholzner presidency virtually impossible.

The Madrid Charter may however can haunt back Sonnenholzner in case of a victory of the right-wing parties in the Spanish elections of this week end due to the immigration policies defended by VOX (at a time when the Lasso administration is negotiating a Schengen visa exemption for Ecuador) and its unapologetic celebration of Spanish colonization and culture, which has little support in Ecuador outside of the whitest and wealthiest sectors of society.

Conversely, he has already attacked by right-wing rivals (in first place Villavicencio) for his tenure as a vice-president under Moreno and for having picked as his running-mate a former public servant in the Correa administration who got a letter of recommendation of the same Correa to enroll in Harvard.

At the moment, Sonnenholzner is however selling himself as a pragmatic-no-nonsense-politician, who is above ideologies (claiming they are ‘outdated’) and will, thanks to his experience as a businessman and as a vice-president who worked with people of all political tendencies, solve problems faced by Ecuador. His platform is including a lot of pro-business stuff (but with also an emphasis on fighting tax evasion and on the role the state must play in fostering economic development, mainly through public works) and a wide range of technology-based proposals (quite concrete things like video surveillance and automatic doors in prisons and more vague/unspecified stuff to modernize the state to notably fight corruption in the awarding of public contracts and improve health care delivery). But also some old-school demagogic stuff like his proposal to force prisoners to pay their meals and his intention to arm the police.


Very broadly speaking, to between the various right-wing/right-leaning candidates:

* Sonnenholzner is the candidate of a 'modernizing' right trying to present as centrist and supported by part of the Lasso administration and political machine

* Villavicencio is the anti-Correa candidate appealing to urban professionals (especially in the Sierra) and also supported by part of the Lasso political machine (he is perceived as the closest candidate to the current president) while being the nemesis of the PSC, something that would pose problem for him if he reach the runoff. Villavicencio came from trade unionism and has been a member of Pachakutik but he is now endorsed by the daughter of León Febres-Cordero and has picked the face of the crackdown on the 2019 indigenous protests as his top candidate in legislative elections, making his political positioning quite confuse and offering many people a reason to dislike him (it doesn't help he is very good at making enemies).

* Topic is the candidate of the Guayaquil traditional oligarchy with a penal populist message

* Noboa is the candidate of the Noboa oligarchic family (having the support of his father, Álvaro, one of the main banana producers but also of his aunt, Isabel Noboa, one of the largest fortunes in Ecuador) who like his father is using the familial 'philanthropic work' to buy votes.

* Hervas is trying (without much hope) to repeat his 2021 performance as the candidate of the medium and small white-mestizo farmers in the Sierra also appealing to young urban voters through the use of social medias and an unconventional style.

* Bolívar Armijos is the candidate supported by some evangelical churches of the Costa and is desperately trying to posture as the champion of rural communities (especially Afro-Ecuadorian ones as he is himself an Afro-Ecuadorian) while overusing a law-and-order discourse (much worse than Topic, with a truckload of unrealistic/unfeasible/unconstitutional proposals way too much extravagant to convince voters) in a pathetic attempt to draw attention on his insignificant candidacy.

[Sir John Johns]

https://twitter.com/PrimeraPlanaECU/status/1683210960880762881

In a particularly shocking news, the mayor of Manta (265,000 inhabitants) Agustín Intriago has been assassinated today during a public event, presumably by a drug cartel hit-man. Another person, a female soccer player, was also killed during the attack while four other persons have been injured.

[Sadader]

How right wing is Sonnenholzner by the way?

Sonnenholzner is one of the various Ecuadorian politicians who signed in 2021 the VOX-sponsored Madrid Charter...

I'm pretty confident this will come down to González v Sonnenholzner in the runoff

How do you think this plays out? Can González mess up this lead or is this pretty much done now?

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

How right wing is Sonnenholzner by the way?

Sonnenholzner is one of the various Ecuadorian politicians who signed in 2021 the VOX-sponsored Madrid Charter...

I'm pretty confident this will come down to González v Sonnenholzner in the runoff

How do you think this plays out? Can González mess up this lead or is this pretty much done now?

Yaku Pérez has a good chance of making it to a runoff, but I think González avoiding a runoff might be more likely than either of those scenarios. She doesn’t need 50%, only to break 40% and have a 10% margin.

[Lumine]

Fernando Villavicencio has just been murdered, shot dead by an unknown assailant - said to have been arrested - during a campaign event.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Horrifying news. RIP.

[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.

[Sir John Johns]

Sorry for my repeated absences, I have personal and medical problems at the moment.

Anyways, developments surrounding the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio have been the following:

* Six Colombian nationals have been arrested after a police raid. All but one have a criminal record in Colombia for offenses ranging from petty theft for one and drug-related or illegal firearms-related crimes for the others; one has been previously sentenced for aggravated homicide. Two of the arrested men have additionally been recently arrested in Ecuador in a case of violence but benefited from conditional release; both should have appeared before a judge the day Villavicencio has been assassinated for not respecting the conditions of their releases.

According to several Colombian outlets (Noticias Caracol, Semana), the police has found on their phones evidences of conversations with unnamed ‘politicians’ but I can’t find an Ecuadorian legit source confirming the fact. There are report in several Colombian medias about the arrests of several Ecuadorian nationals but, again, no confirmation on the Ecuadorian side, so...

The gunman has succumbed from injuries he received during the shooting with the policemen who arrested him. There is a controversy over the fact that, while arrested and injured, he was transferred toward the police custody facilities and not the hospital and over the non-release of the forensic report. The gunman has previously been arrested in Ecuador in June for illegal carrying of firearms but released by a judge. According to the Washington Post he had a Latin Kings gang symbol tattooed on his arm.



Villavicencio isn’t actually the first Ecuadorian presidential candidate to be assassinated, but the first one to be killed on the campaign trail while still technically eligible to become the next president.

In 1978, five months after the first round of the presidential election organized by the military dictatorship as part of the democratic transition, the candidate of the Alfarist Radical Front (FRA) Abdón Calderón (who had placed fifth with 9.0% of the votes in the first round) was shot in Guayaquil by hitmen. He died shortly thereafter, in November 1978, in a hospital of Miami where he had been transferred. Like Villavicencio, Calderón ran as a champion of the fight against corruption. It rapidly emerged the man who ordered his assassination was the then-minister for government, Gen. Bolívar Jarrín Cahueñas. In 1982, Jarrín Cahueñas would be sentenced to twelve years in jail for his participation in the assassination of Calderón. The assassination of Calderón largely discredited the military junta and, consequently, the runoff candidate (a moderate right-winger) it was supported, made the democratization process irreversible and enabled the landslide victory in April 1979 of Jaime Roldós who had established himself as the anti-military, pro-democracy candidate.

Also, in 1999, the two-time presidential candidate, Afro-Ecuadorian activist and leader of the leftist MPD Jaime Hurtado, then a congressman, was assassinated in Quito, in the vicinity of the Ecuadorian Congress. The murder has remained partly unresolved with the relatives of Hurtado remaining skeptical about the findings of the Ecuadorian justice and insisting on the involvement of Colombian illegal elements (in that case, far-right paramilitary thugs). Noticeably, one of the shooters died at the hands of the police in disputed circumstances.



* President Lasso has announced he has requested the help of the FBI to investigate the case, an admission the Ecuadorian police is considered as untrustworthy and unreliable to solve the murder. Indeed, questions have been raised over the obvious deficiencies in the control of attendants to the meeting of Villavicencio and the lack of transparency of the police (journalists weren’t authorized to ask questions in the press conference of the interior minister). On the other hand, it appears that Villavicencio hasn’t been always very prudent, notably refusing to wear a bullet-proof vest as requested by the security staff (he was however shot in the head, so…).

The response of the Lasso administration has been the same than in the previous security crises (prison massacres, bombing attacks in Guayaquil and Esmeraldas, assassination of the mayor of Manta): thoughts and prayers + proclamation of a state of exception (a nationwide state of exception this time – this is the 19th time since his swearing in office that Lasso is declaration a state of exception and the 13th time he is declaring a state of exception in relation with insecurity) + martial declarations to announce a war on criminals that will have few, if any, concrete effects.

At this point, the word and action of Lasso is totally discredited, even among his historical supporters. As the Constitutional Court is currently striking down most of the economic decrees he has enacted since he triggered the muerte cruzada arguing the government has enable to present juridic arguments backing the economic emergency of said decrees, the only success of his administration will be his vaccination plan, a very poor political record. He may as well left the country once out of office to avoid prosecution just like Abdalá Bucaram, Jamil Mahuad, Gustavo Noboa, Rafael Correa and Lenín Moreno before him.



* At the beginning of the month and the day before his death, Villavicencio has publicly denounced the threats he and his campaign team have received from ‘Fito’, the jailed leader of the Los Choneros, an Ecuadorian drug gang working closely with the Sinaloa cartel.

‘Fito’ has made the headlines on last 25 July when he released from the Guayaquil’s Littoral Penitentiary a video in which he can be seen next to armed guards (one wearing a police uniform and later confirmed being indeed a member of the police) and heard calling other leaders of drug gangs for a truce as the Littoral Penitentiary was the theater of bloody clashes between criminal bands (31 inmates were reportedly killed that day).

The video featuring ‘Fito’ provoked a scandal, especially as shortly thereafter an official report on the clashes in the Littoral Penitentiary between inmates and policemen was published, mentionning such odd facts like a police vehicle felling into a tilapia pool in the prison premises or the prison guards letting weapons destined to inmates entering the prison, all of this the middle of the massacres.

At the beginning of the month, the director of the Littoral Penitentiary has been arrested (but nonetheless released on parole shortly thereafter) after weapons, ammunition, explosives and drugs seemingly destined to inmate have been found by the police in the prison staff offices. Back in June, the police had already seized in what supposed to be a high-security block in the Santo Domingo prison stuff like fighting cocks and a couple of adult pigs in addition to the more 'conventional' edged weapons, drugs and alcohol.

All of this is revealing of the sad reality of the Ecuadorian prisons that are largely controlled and managed by gangs, possibly with the blessing of the government itself.



* Nonetheless, in the hours following the assassination of Villavicencio, a video surfaced on social networks in which masked individuals pretending to be members of the Los Lobos gang were claiming responsibility for the murder of the candidate because this is what happens when ‘corrupt politicians do not fulfill the promises they made when they received our money’ before also indicating Jan Topic will be the next one to fall. The Los Lobos are the rivals of the Los Choneros and are the local allies of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

The video has since been confirmed to be an edit of an old video shot in Mexico with the sound track having been changed to support the claim of responsibility.

Since then, another video has been released in which are appearing individuals, but with faces uncovered, who pretend to be the real members of the Los Lobos. Said individuals claim that the first video is ‘totally false’ and that the Los Lobos have nothing to do with the death of Villavicencio. They conclude by pretending that other criminal organizations are trying to destabilize the country and put the blame on the Los Lobos for the assassination of the candidate.



* Unsurprisingly, accusations about the RC being involved in some way or another one in the assassination of Villavicencio have emerged, without a single evidence so far. The Colombian medias are also trying to blame leftist senator Piedad Córdoba (who previously publicly insulted Villavicencio when this one accused her of being an associate of Álex Saab) but, to be fair, the Ecuadorian medias don't care about Córdoba.

The day just before the assassination, Villavicencio, in a media stunt, go the Fiscalía General to deliver a series of documents and videos related to the presumed irregular awarding, at a price prejudicial to the interests of the State, of 21 oil exploitation contracts in the Amazon to several companies, in first place Schlumberger, and to file a complaint against the officials of the Correa (for having awarded the contracts in the first place), Moreno and Lasso (for not having denounced the contracts) administrations.

One of the key evidences is the full video of the 2014 secretly recorded meeting between then-vice president Jorge Glas and the then-director of the Agency for Hydrocarbon Regulation and Control (ARCH). Excerpts of said video have been leaked on an anti-Correa website last year. In one of these, Glas is discussing oil contracts with the ARCH director and is demanding him to not leave anything in writing because otherwise ‘after ten years, they are going to send the president [Rafael Correa] in jail’.



* Finally, Villavicencio has already reported in last September threats made to his life when, according to his testimony, two unknowns fired shots outside his home in Quito. Five bullet shells were subsequently found by the police before the house of Villavicencio.

https://twitter.com/villafernando_/status/1566052540600516609

The then-legislator claimed the failed attack or intimidation attempt was connected to his revelations about the alleged ties between drug cartels and several RC politicians, especially Ronny Aleaga.

A reformed (or alleged reformed) Latin Kings gang member, Aleaga who then served as an assemblyman and hold a position in the leadership of the National Assembly, saw his US visa immediately revoked after the publication in May 2022 on Villavicencio’s investigative website of several photos of an April 2022 private party in a villa of Miami on which Aleaga can be see in a pool next to two shady individuals, Xavier Jordán and Leonardo Cortázar.



A photo of the pool where appearing those Villavicencio called, with his not-unusual insulting style, 'the drug-trafficking cartel of the big-breasted'.

An Ecuadorian businessman currently residing in Florida, Jordán is also a fugitive from the Ecuadorian justice who is investigated for his presumed participation in a corruption network in Guayaquil public hospitals. According to Villavicencio, Jordán has additionally served as a middle-man for Leandro Norero (alleged to be the main financier of various drug gangs in Ecuador who had been arrested in May 2022 at the same time the photos of Aleaga had been published and has since been murdered in a prison by a rival gang) and helped him laundering money coming from drug trafficking. Allegedly, the house where Norero was arrested by the police and where wads of notes and gold bar seized was originally belonging to Jordán who sold it to Norero through a shell company registered in a tax haven. Jordán has claimed being totally innocent and being an honest businessman and, after having engaged in a social networks feud with Villavicencio and his associates, has filed before a Miami court a complaint against Villavicencio for libel he bragged about on Twitter few hours before the death of Villavicencio.

For his part, Cortázar is a discrete public contractor said to have held sway on electricity sector in the last years of the Correa administration and all along the Moreno administration, who additionally has been active in Fuerza Ecuador, has served as a Guayas director for Libertad es Pueblo (one of the shell parties ran by the Moreno family) and has participated in the 2021 presidential campaign of Andrés Arauz. Cortázat didn’t take well his name receiving such publicity as he was arrested by the police in November 2022 after having threatened Villavicencio in the airport of Quito. Cortázar has since been also involved in the El Gran Padrino scandal, the leaking by La Posta of audios revealing that the brother-in-law and close associate of Guillermo Lasso was negotiating and distributing contracts in public sector in exchange of kickbacks. Among the people exposed by the audios as doing shady business with Lasso’s brother-in-law appeared Cortázar as well as Rubén Cherres, a businessman investigated by the Ecuadorian justice for his ties with the Albanian mafia (operating in Ecuador since the early 2010s) and his suspicious business practices (the registering of eight companies on a single day).

If I mentioned all of this, it is because since then:

- Cortázar has fled Ecuador, presumably for Panama, to avoid indictment in the case

- Cherres, whom the police has been unable (unwilling?) to locate and arrest during three months, has been ultimately found murdered with three other persons on last April in an apartment located in the affluent posh seaside resort of Punta Blanca (Santa Elena province). According to the police report, the four persons had been tortured before being assassinated. Suspects in the case have only been arrested a month ago with the Interior Minister indicating the murders are unrelated to the Albanian mafia.

- Yet, shortly thereafter, on 25 July, it was announced that Andersson Boscán, the co-founder and the face of La Posta, as well as his wife, also working for La Posta, were leaving the country, arguing of worrying threats against their lives made by an unspecified criminal organization and accusing the Lasso administration of inaction if not collusion with criminal groups.

https://twitter.com/LaPosta_Ecu/status/1683932858149400576

- Ronny Aleaga is one of the very RC incumbent legislators to not have been renominated, an indication of how much embarrassing he has become for Correa’s party which, usually, staunchly defended its leading members when suspected, charged or sentenced in a judicial case.

So, in short, Villavicencio made a lot of enemies with his revelations about corruption and drug trafficking (some having never been confirmed due to the slowness of the Ecuadorian justice), and it seems pretty certain that narcos have infiltrated political parties, justice and prison system, the police and the army (to which extent is unclear) and have broadened their economic activities to engage into illegal mining and logging, human smuggling (coyoterismo) and extortion while having established business associations with the traditional actors involved in embezzlement of public money, money laundering and tax evasion.

[Sir John Johns]

On purely political and electoral fronts:

* The CNE has confirmed the first round of the election will take place on 20 August and that the mandatory presidential debate between the now seven candidates will still be organized and aired tomorrow evening like originally planned.



* Whatever happens the name of Villavicencio will remain on the ballot as there is no time left to print new ballots.

Construye has the possibility to nominate a new candidate, who should be a male as the vice-presidential slot is ‘locked’ for Andrea González (once registered, candidacies are irrevocable). The most visible face of the Construye campaign after Villavicencio himself has been Patricio Carrillo but he has obtained a week ago the definitive certification of his candidacy as the top candidate on the national list for National Assembly. As Construye isn’t a real party and hasn’t well-known cadres and leaders (bar María Paula Romo, who is in self-exile in the United States to avoid prosecution in a corruption case and for the human rights violations that characterized the repression of the 2019 indigenous paro), it hasn’t a clear and a ‘household name’ candidate to replace Villavicencio on the presidential ticket. Even if it finds somebody, there is a legit doubt about whether the replacement candidate could be certified in time for election day. Obviously, if there is a replacement candidate, he would not be able to participate in the television debate, creating an unequal treatment between the presidential candidates.

In case no replacement candidate is nominated, the votes for the Construye Fernando Villavicencio-Andrea González Nader presidential ticket will be considered as null. Nonetheless, Construye has requested the CNE to examine whether there is a possibility that its presidential ticket could run with a single name (González Nader as vice-presidential candidate) with González Nader assuming the presidency in case of victory.



* Yaku Pérez has called other candidates to meet under the aegis of the Ecuadorian Bishops’ Conference in order to reach a ‘Great National Agreement for Security’ and declared having had phone discussions with all other candidates but Luisa González and Jan Topic. Pérez claimed he left a phone message to the two latter, something Luisa González has contradicted, claiming she has never been contacted by the indigenous candidate. For his part, Topic has declined the proposal of Pérez, arguing that the only thing the governments have did so far to address security is ‘meeting’ and that the only pact he will made will be with Ecuadorians.

The meeting to sign a ‘Great National Agreement for Security’ took place yesterday in a Quito hotel, just after the funeral of Villavicencio, with only Pérez, Hervas, Sonnenholzner and Armijos participating as well as González Nader.

The document the four presidential candidates produced with Villavicencio’s running-mate is rather ludicrous:

https://twitter.com/yakuperezg/status/1690171364248805376

The ‘Great Agreement for Security’ is consisting of four points, which are:

- solidarity with relatives and supporters of Villavicencio and a denunciation of the assassination
- a transparent, rapid and rigorous investigation of the government
- blaming the government for the explosion of violence and demanding ‘urgent actions to provide sufficient guarantees for the lives of Ecuadorians and the holding of the electoral process’
- demanding the government implements the budget allocated to security (execution of government budget is one of the deficiencies of the Lasso administration).



* The ‘unity in dignity’ which has been officially displayed by all the presidential candidates in ther wake of the assassination of Villavicencio predictably lasted only a few hours: Sonnenholzner didn’t waste time to imply the RC is responsible for the death of Villavicencio; meanwhile Luisa González, who has portrayed Villavicencio as the candidate of Lasso for weeks, rapidly blamed the assassination of the candidate on Lasso, referring to the alleged ties of the president’s brother-in-law with organized crime.



* The assassination of Villavicencio, a historical and staunch opponent of Correa, is probably not a good news for the RC which has been already embroiled into two potentially destructive controversies since the beginning of the month and which has made the choice of doing a polarizing campaign to mobilize its ‘hard core vote’ (voto duro) with the expectation to win the presidency in the first round.

The first controversy has been related to the very recent scandal of alleged illegal financing of the presidential campaign of Gustavo Petro. The name of Raisa Vulgarín, a RC alternate candidate on the legislative national list (on 4th position, so with a great chance of being elected and sworn in office in case of resignation of the titular assemblyman), is appearing in chats discussing an illegal $123,000 cash transfer according to Semana. Participated in the illegal cash transfer were Vulgarín and her boyfriend, Camilo Burgos, a cousin and associate of Nicolás Petro.

The scandal hasn’t really take off, mostly because Vulgarín is a complete unknown and because the Colombian right already attempted in 2021 to connect the RC presidential candidate to a scandal of illegal financing by using evidences which turned up bogus. It could became a problem in case the name of Vinicio Alvarado (a RC bigwig who has worked on Petro’s 2022 campaign and has heavily lobbied in favor of nominating Luisa González as the party’s candidate) also pops up in the scandal and if more solid and indisputable proofs of illegal financing (in particular by drug illegal groups) emerge.

The second one has been, as predicted, about the actual position of the RC in regard with the dollarization of Ecuador.

An interview gave in last April by Arauz to an Argentinian outlet timely emerged and went viral on the Internet. In said interview, Arauz is lamenting about the inability to de-dollarized Ecuador and states dollarization is an incentive for drug money laundering, before discussing a plan of him he refers to as ‘ecuadolarización’. Such project, as discussed by Arauz with his proverbial lack of communication talents and ability to clearly explained things, would be ‘the generation of electronic means of payment, a digital money of the Ecuadorian central bank to allow benefiting from dollarization, but with sovereign domestic means of payment’. It would entail ‘a sort of electronic convertibility’ so dollars would be solely used for international payments as the use of dollar bills for national payments is, according to Arauz, ‘extremely inefficient and is reducing opportunities for international trade’.

When asked if such system would be similar to the convertibility system used in Argentina between 1991 and 2002, Arauz responds ‘yes, but deriving from the use of modern technologies, the means of electronic payments’ before adding this will ‘not [be] an old-school convertibility but an ecuadolarización with means of electronic payments and, above all, a very active policy in the administration of the balance of payment to avoid the fight of capital’.

The old and not very elaborated proposal of Arauz was widely criticized by his rivals who portrayed the ‘ecuadolarización’ as a system in which the state seize a safe-haven currency, notably from Ecuadorians abroad who sent remittances to support their relatives stayed home for its own projects while leaving households with a Monopoly money to do their shopping. Opponents to Correa raised the specter of a rampant inflation and massive currency devaluation, or even a Venezuela-like economic situation, in case Arauz’s plans are implemented.

As dollarization is remaining a very popular policy among voters (who have been left traumatized by the collapse of the sucre and the concomitant failure of the banking system in the late 1990s), Luisa González, who has previously indicated that Arauz will be in charge of economy in case she is elected, has been forced to rule out any de-dollarization plan during a TV interview and to state that, on the contrary, if a president, she will strengthen the dollarization in an attempt to end the growing controversy.

In a meeting in Machala, Arauz also publicly proclaimed he would strengthen the dollarization of Ecuador, and that just few months after having exposed his ‘ecuadolarización’ plan and praised the Latin-American currency project (Sur) pushed by Lula to challenge the dollar dominance.

https://twitter.com/BNPeriodismo/status/1689089633018150913

* Less relevant but still illustrating how weak are political parties and political loyalties in Ecuador:

- It appears that before joining the Correa administration, Luisa González has been in 2006 an alternate candidate on the PSC list for Congress in Pichincha province; her mother was a titular candidate on the same list.

- The RC national leadership has called its voters to NOT vote for the RC in the race for Pastaza provincial assemblyman after it emerged the top candidate on the list, Ximena Morante, has during her 2021 bid for National Assembly (when a PSE candidate) criticized Jorge Glas and labeled the RC as a movement ‘for thieves and corrupts’. Morante has previously ran for a seat of Pastaza assemblywoman in 2017, but then as the candidate of a CREO-SUMA joint alliance.



* By this point, I'm not sure the polls conducted until now are of any use to predict the outcome of the first round. The death of Villavicencio has reshuffled the cards and may determine many voters to support a presidential candidate according to his rhetoric on crime (because let's be honest, no candidate is proposing a convicing agenda on that matter beyond statements of intentions) or based on their own resent towards the candidate(s) they will blame for the assassination of Villavicencio/the security situation in Ecuador. The presidential debate of tomorrow as well as possible developments surrounding the investigation of the Villavicencio case could be still important factors to decide the outcome of the election.

[Sir John Johns]

The alliance that has supported the candidacy of Fernando Villavicencio is collapsing over the designation of a replacement candidate (which may not even be certified by the CNE...)

https://twitter.com/Construye_Ecu/status/1690420933599608834

The Construye Movement confirms Andrea González @AtomikHeartMom* as presidential candidate.

Andrea will guarantee the legacy of Fernando Villavicencio and millions of Ecuadorians will join with her for this mission.

* when you choose your Twitter account name without thinking you would be in politics a decade later.

Construye will try to register the candidacy of Andrea González as its presidential candidate with a male running-mate to be designated.

https://twitter.com/Primicias/status/1690355658451759104

Such move is however challenged by Gente Buena (‘Good People’), the unregistered party founded by Villavicencio which, having no legal recognition is totally dependent on Construye to run candidates.

Gente Buena has instead nominated as a presidential candidate its vice-president, Edwin Ortega, a former captain discharged from the Ecuadorian Navy for indiscipline (he criticized then-president Correa in an e-mail he directly sent to the head of state) and seemingly a military nutcase: Ortega is posing as the leader of something named ‘Battalion for Peace and Democracy’ which may exists only on Twitter.

Ortega has posted a long message on Twitter in which he makes a fuss about the leadership of Construye (María Paula Romo and Iván Granda) as well as Patricio Carrillo, accusing them of not less than betraying the mission of Villavicencio (aka ‘destroying Correísmo in the polls and burying the mafias’) with their petty personal and political interests. The reason of the anger of Ortega is the unilateral decision of Construye to begin the registration of González as a presidential candidate without asking Gente Buena and, more probably, for having ignored Ortega's own presidential ambitions. In his message, Ortega also considers González would be a bad candidate as she has only been ‘the running-mate of Villavicencio and not her companion-in-arms’ and ‘would never be able to understand the clamor of the people’.

[Sir John Johns]

https://twitter.com/eluniversocom/status/1690765441365319680

Construye has renounced trying to get Andrea González registered as the party’s presidential candidate (a move which has been criticized by Villavicencio’s widow) and has instead nominated Christian Zurita, 53, a journalist with no previous electoral experience.

Zurita has worked for various newspapers and the Teleamazonas TV station. Specialized in corruption investigation, Zurita has been sued for libel by then-President Correa after the publication in 2010 of the El Gran Hermano (‘The Big Brother’) book he co-wrote and in which was detailed how Correa’s elder brother, a businessman in construction sector, illegally received public contracts from the government. Zurita and his colleague were sentenced in February 2012 to a $1 million fine each for ‘moral damage’ caused to the president (Correa was asking a $10 million indemnity) but, following an outcry from press freedom international organizations, Correa withdrawn his complaint and the case was shelved in April 2012.

Afterwards, Zurita has worked for several investigation websites before co-founding with Villavicencio the Periodismo de Investigación website which notably revealed the Arroz Verde illegal political financing case of Alianza PAIS in which Correa has been sentenced in abstentia.

Zurita has announced he will attended the presidential debate of this night but not participated as his candidacy hasn’t been certified. Zurita has received the endorsement of Villavicencio’s widow as well as the one of Gente Buena, which has few hours before contradicted a previous statement of its vice-president by announcing its support to a presidential candidacy of Andrea González.

The choice of Zurita is however also relaunching the controversy about the blending of journalism and politics in Ecuador.

Andrea González is remaining Construye's candidate for vice president.

[Oryxslayer]

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

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

[Sir John Johns]

‘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.

https://twitter.com/JanethBustosRC/status/1691164796656230401

The name of Briones is appearing nowhere in the lists of candidates for National Assembly I have consulted (see here and here) but it would be cool if the CNE website wasn’t again down to check if he wasn’t a substitute candidate; I still doubt if he was even a substitute candidate otherwise it would have been somehow mentioned.

Not wanting to downplay his death but Briones was just an obscure RC local politician who seems to never have hold an elective office and was holding the post of the RC movement’s local branch in the parish of San Mateo (Esmeraldas).

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.



That said, Briones is the last name in a too long string of politicians who have been assassinated or have escaped an assassination attempt since the local elections campaign. The assassination of Briones may not even be the most momentous security-related event that has happened the last few days.

Two days ago, the car of Jorge Yunda, the former mayor of Quito, has been attacked in the northeast of the capital by five masked armed assailants who briefly kidnapped Yunda’s daughter before abandoning her along the route. By Yunda’s own account, the attackers were unaware of the identity of the persons they were attacking. Yet, this is another episode showing the deterioration of security in Quito, a city which until recently has been mostly preserved by the abuses of criminal gangs unlike Guayaquil or Esmeraldas.

In a widely publicized operation that necessitated some 4,000 policemen and military, the government has extracted on 12 August alias ‘Fito’ from his cell to transfer and place him in solitary confinement in another prison of Guayaquil, La Roca, a maximum-security prison (or alleged so) where the same ‘Fito’ had been already incarcerated several years ago (and from where he managed to briefly escape in 2013, leading to a refurbishment of La Roca, not a very old prison as it has been built in 2008).

The transfer of ‘Fito’ has led to protests of inmates on the roof of his former prison, all of this while between 150 and 200 bikers converged in the immediate vicinity of the same prison to express their opposition to the relation of the Choneros leader. And yesterday, an urban bus has been burnt down in Guayaquil; the police is investigating a possible connection with the relocation of ‘Fito’.

Finally, a video was released on the Internet in which persons pretending to be members of the Choneros threaten the government of reprisals in case something happen to ‘Fito’ in La Roca prison.

[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. 

[Sir John Johns]

The first round presidential TV debate took place on last Sunday with seven presidential candidates participating and the pulpit destined to Villavicencio remaining empty. Christian Zurita wasn’t enabled to attend the event bar less addressing a message due to his candidacy not certified; this led to grumbling from his supporters.

Didn’t watched it but this is what has been the sentiment according to various articles completed by various Ecuadorian Twitter users I usually read.

https://www.primicias.ec/noticias/elecciones-presidenciales-2023/debate-presidencial-candidatos-propuestas-memes/

https://dialoguemos.ec/2023/08/la-academia-critica-el-debate-por-ser-superficial-y-omitir-temas-importantes/

https://www.lahora.com.ec/pais/debate-presidencial-cne-definiciones-villavicencio/

https://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/politica/quien-gano-el-debate-presidencial-nota/


The formatting of the debate has been widely criticized and wasn’t understood/respected by candidates or even by moderators who, at one point, got lost in the script and struggled to find out how the debate should proceeded. In term of substance, it has been considered as very disappointing with all candidates failing to present concrete proposals, not answering the questions of the moderators/other candidates or making personal attacks against their rivals.

* By most accounts, even from RC supporters, González did a rather poor performance, sounding like she was reciting a text and constantly repeating about how formidable things were under the Correa administration (ya lo hicimos) without elaborating about how she will go back to the golden age of the Citizen Revolution in such a severely deteriorated economic and security environment.

https://twitter.com/LuisaGonzalezEc/status/1690895640807845888

The lack of fresh ideas has been perceptible when after having been asked what she would do in regard of the fuel subsides, she promised the construction of the Pacific Refinery, a project that would create 25,000 jobs, deliberately ignoring the Correa administration hadn’t been able to build such refinery for a decade. She also told a blatant lie when she pretended that her administration would restore transparent public procurement ‘as we already did in the Citizen Revolution government’.

* Unsurprisingly, Topic choose to discuss mostly about safety matters and to promote his mano dura approach against criminality, including during the segments of the debate dedicated to unrelated topics (notably the part about children malnutrition he hijacked to again discuss about he necessity of cracking down on criminality). He is still considered as one of the winners of the debate for having been able to cement his posture as a tough-on-crime candidate and to deliver and stick to a clear message without looking like a wacky and amateur candidate.

* Sonnenholzner’s performance has been widely considered as average, being constantly attacked for his association with the Moreno administration. He criticized Topic on the latter’s proposal to finance fight against crime with traffic fines, pretending denouncing a conflict of interest because Topic’s company is renting radar speed guns to the state, an allegation dismissed by Topic.

* Yaku Pérez looks like at ease and try to appear as a sympathetic and unifying figure, tricking several times another candidate into agreeing with his own proposals. He however made a mistake when, after Topic made him an answer he considered too much angry, he invited him and two of his ‘legionnaire soldiers’ to play an Ecua-volley match in order to relax, a bizarre proposal rejected by Topic who said there is no time to waste into playing volley when criminality is exploding.

https://twitter.com/notimundoec/status/1690915542071218176

* Daniel Noboa gave a rather and surprising good performance, being the only candidate to mention the foreign debt problem and making a case in favor of stopping oil extraction in Yasuní and voting ‘yes’ in the consulta by using economic projections from international finance institutions that led him to conclude that the low revenue it will provide to the state would not be worth the risk of polluting the Yasuní Park.

* The performance of Xavier Hervas has been remarkably unremarkable.

* Finally Bolívar Armijos became, according to some study, became the most discussed candidate on the social networks, owing to his abysmal performance, his inability to understand the rules of the debate (at one moment, Armijos asked the moderator what was the question he was supposed to answer to which he was told that he was the one who actually had to ask a question to another candidate), his insistence on talking about decentralization and the fact he looked like totally out-of-place, all factors that contributed to the generation of an avalanche of memes mocking the AMIGO candidate.

https://twitter.com/PabloCarreraB/status/1690887822838751232

[Sir John Johns]

This is becoming totally insane.

Christian Zurita has just posted this on his Twitter account:

https://twitter.com/christianzr/status/1691288357995769856

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.

[Sir John Johns]

This is not good at all:

https://twitter.com/eluniversocom/status/1691791610227388658

Correísmo challenges the presidential candidacy of Christian Zurita who replaces Fernando Villavicencio assassinated on 9 August.

Marcela Aguiñaga, the national director of the RC, has filed a legal challenge against Zurita’s candidacy before the CNE only one hour and a half before the expiration of the deadline enabling such challenge. In her complaint, Aguiñaga is arguing that Zurita cannot run for president as he is currently the member of another registered political organization (RETO) than this one sponsoring his candidacy (Construye) and hasn’t sent his resignation from the other political organization at least 90 days before the closing date of candidacies.


Construye is claiming that, when registering the candidacy of Zurita, they found out his signature has been used without his consent nor his knowledge to register him as a member of RETO (which, sadly, is very plausible).

https://twitter.com/Construye_Ecu/status/1691748849214205956

Correísmo is again trying to silence us, confirming its fear if our candidacy.

When checking the requirements, we learned about a false registration and requested its cancellation on 13 August.

Christian Zurita is affiliated with Construye and meets all legal requirements.

The challenge must now been examined by the CNE and could go to the TCE, meaning it is highly dubious that the candidacy of Zurita will be certified before election day. Additionally, today was the last day of the official campaign, meaning that Construye has been enable to broadcast clips of the campaign of their replacement candidate on television and radio.


It is widely suspected that, with such last-minute maneuver, the RC (whose leaders afaik have so far not communicate on the matter) is intending to inflate the numbers of null ballots (as a vote for the Construye presidential ticket would be considered as invalid) and increase the chances of their candidate to be elected in the first round (she needs to won 40% of the valid votes with a ten-point lead over her closest rival).

[Sir John Johns]

And another twist...

https://twitter.com/vicenteopi/status/1691830725635428705

Attention: the president of the CNE, Diana Atamaint, acknowledges the alleged affiliation of Christian Zurita to the RETO movement is invalid and announces that tonight the candidacy will be qualified and the complaint filed by the Citizen Revolution will be rejected.

The expert graphologists of the CNE have established the signature used to register Zurita with RETO doesn’t match the actual signature of the journalist-turn-candidate and has been almost certainly counterfeit.

The CNE must now convened to officially reject the complaint from the RC and finally green-light the candidacy of Zurita, but this decision may be still be appealed by the RC before the CNE and, in case of a second reject, before the Electoral Dispute Tribunal (TCE).

Unlike what I previously wrote (but this is a bit unclear to me), whatever will happen, the ballots marked ‘Fernando Villavicencio’ will be counted as votes for the Construye replacement presidential candidate, i.e. Zurita, providing the latter can prove he is meeting all legal requirements. His candidacy could be certified after election day like what happened in last February in the election of the mayor of Puerto López when the most-voted candidate, who was assassinated six hours before the opening of the polling stations, was still declared victorious and its votes transferred to the replacement candidate designated the day of the election who was sworn in office after it has been determined she was eligible.

Andrea González has declared no having trust into the CNE, an institution which by the past has already proved ineffective to manage an election planned months before and is now unable to conduct an extraordinary and unprecedented election characterized by extraordinary developments.

[Sir John Johns]

The CNE has unanimously voted to reject the challenge filed by the RC against the candidacy of Zurita. Now the RC has three days to submit a ‘subjective appeal’ before the Electoral Dispute Tribunal (TCE). Otherwise the candidacy of Zurita will be officially certified on Saturday, the day before the first round.

If the documents made public by Construye are accurate, the signature used to register Zurita as a member of RETO is a laughably crude forgery:

https://twitter.com/yali_loaiza/status/1692011828291789278

The CNE qualified the candidacy of Christian Zurita as the handwriting analysis showed that the signature in the RETO membership file isn’t the one of Zurita.

In red the false signature. In green, the real one.

The CNE is supposed to verify the accuracy of the thousands of signatures submitted by political organizations to be registered.

In an interview, Pierina Correa, the sister of Rafael and the top candidate on the RC national list in the legislative elections, has suggested the movement shouldn’t submitted an appeal before the TCE, so hopefully this charade is quickly over.

[FredLindq]

First poll since  the asasination (from Comunicaliza)
Gonzalez 24,9% (-6)
Topic 21,7% (+6)
Villavicencio 14,5% (+6).

[PSOL]

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.

[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.

[Sir John Johns]

https://twitter.com/fabriciovelav/status/1692245533979500862

Candidates protected with bulletproof vests.

Something unprecedented in this country and that should invite us to consider how broken we are and the point we are reached.

In addition to the bulletproof vest, Zurita is now also wearing a military helmet during public events like during a tribute to Villavicencio organized few days ago.


- A firing of shots had been reported during the final meeting of Daniel Noboa, hold Thursday in Durán, a Guayaquil suburb riddled with crime and plagued with poverty. It turned out the incident had nothing to do with Noboa’s campaign event and it wasn’t the candidate and his motorcade which were targeted by the shooters.


- The security situation is still deteriorating with two attacks against politicians having happened for the sole last day:

* Francisco Tamariz Guerrero, the mayor of La Libertad (Santa Elena province) elected for a local movement, has claimed he survived an assassination attempt while driving at the entrance of the city of Santa Elena. According to Tamariz, he was ambushed by policemen or individuals posing as policemen. Said individuals fired about 30 shots towards the mayor’s car. Tamariz has attributed his survival to the sole fact he was in an armored vehicle.

The province of Santa Elena has experienced a sharp increase in criminality which has been in part attributed to the repeated proclamations of a state of exception in neighboring Guayas: some criminals from Guayaquil area have moved to Santa Elena to evade police presence.

* Three explosive devices have been detonated next to the Esmeraldas prefecture building, forcing the temporary closing of the prefecture. The provincial prefect Roberta Zambrano (PSC) has indicated that shots have been fired towards the house of a prefecture employee and that she is receiving death threats ‘on a daily basis’; Zambrano’s brother-in-law has been assassinated on last February by hit-men. Additionally, the police is investigating about death threats made against the candidates on the PSC provincial list for a National Assembly seat.

This is pointing to the possibility the voting operations could be affected by violence.


- The police has announced the arrest of four men presumed to have participated last month in the assassination of the mayor of Manta, Agustín Intriago. One of the suspect is a Dominican national and while another one is actually already behind the bars: the police is investigating the strong possibility that the murder of Intriago has been planned from one of the prisons of Guayaquil.


- Finally, relatives of Villavicencio have filed a complaint for ‘intentional omission’ against President Lasso, the interior minister and the head of the police. According to the lawyer of the Villavicencio family, the government and the police neglected the security of the presidential candidate in spite of past threats against his life.

[Sir John Johns]

There has been a shooting next to the Guayaquil restaurant where Sonnenholzner and his family have breakfast. Turns out it was thieves chased by the police who shot at the cops to avoid arrest. Nothing to do with the presence of Sonnenholzner but enhancing the feel of widespread insecurity.


Maybe an indication that support for Topic is rising among voters, Zurita had dedicated on Wednesday, one of his latest public interventions before the end of the official first round campaign to discuss a scandal he claimed Villavicencio intended exposing during the presidential debate: the questionable 2022 awarding by the former PSC municipality in Guayaquil of a $30 million contract to Telconet, the company owned by the Topic family. The contract was about the procurement and installation of 15,000 AI security cameras. According to Zurita, only 0.8% of said cameras are currently fully operational, the rest being either under-used either out of order.

Rafael Correa and the RC, which are usually extremely disparaging about Villavicencio and Zurita’s investigative work (especially when it exposes their own corruption scandals), have used the camera contract story to go after Topic after having spent most of the campaign focusing their attacks on Sonnenholzner with the belief this latter would be the most likely opponent of González in a potential runoff.

The allegation about the useless cameras has been dismissed by the Topic father and son as disinformation. According to Tomislav Topic, the general-manager of Telconet, his company has never received a payment for the cameras Telconet has installed and is currently operating.

The new RC municipality has confirmed Telconet has never been paid for the cameras without giving the official reason. It has also reiterated that, like most of other contracts awarded by the Viteri administration, the Telconet contract is currently under review and that the help of the General Comptroller’s Office has been requested.

According to Primicias, which is citing a Guayaquil municipal source, Telconet hasn't been paid for the cameras for the reason that the fantastic AI-system promised by the company to monitor the surveillance system has never functionned. As a consequence, the Telconet surveillance system currently installed in Guayaquil is just ordinary cameras filming streets. Reportedly, they can’t even display accurately the date and time of day. Hence why the Guayaquil municipality, feeling cheated, refused to sign the receipt for the cameras and to pay Telconet.


The ties of Jan Topic with Telconet could pose him some additional problems if he goes further than the first round. During a widely publicized show, the candidate presented the so-called New Police 2024 with its high-tech equipment (derided as a ‘Robocop Police’) and its armored vehicles he promised he would put into action during his presidency.

https://twitter.com/jantopicecuador/status/1691798891019051477

In addition to the usual critics about the lack of consideration for the social aspects of the insecurity problem in Topic’s plan and the skepticism about where the money to finance that would come from (officially, this would be financed by traffic fines, which may be a bit short), a controversy emerged about the fact that the two armored vehicles used during the exposition of the plan of Topic are belonging to Telconet; it rises the question of a potential conflict of interest: will the contracts for equipment of the New Police 2024 promised by Jan Topic be awarded to the company of his family? And if yes, will the material provided as bad as the Guayaquil cameras?

Not an irrelevant question as Telconet has directly participated in the astroturfing of the candidacy of Topic through the publication of a series of polls produced by its subsidiary polling institute, Telcodata. Said polls, as we can expect, all predicted that Topic would be the second most-voted candidate behind González.