Ecuador will hold early general elections on August 20, 2023, two years before they were originally scheduled to take place. The early elections were triggered by conservative president Guillermo Lasso when he dissolved the opposition-dominated National Assembly using a constitutional clause known as “cross-death” and abruptly ended his presidential term and that of the legislators, which were due to conclude in May 2025.
Lasso disbanded the country’s unicameral parliament on May 17, citing a “political crisis and internal commotion” as justification. His decision came a day after the congress had begun the impeachment proceedings against him on allegations that he failed to intervene to end a faulty contract between the state-owned oil transport company and a private tanker company. Lasso stood accused of the crime of embezzlement of public funds for renewing a contract that represented a loss for the state, accusations that he had denied.
The cross-death mechanism allows the president to dissolve the legislature during a political crisis and govern for up to six months by decree with the control of the Constitutional Court. At the same time, it obliges the National Electoral Council (CNE) to organize new presidential and legislative elections in a maximum period of 90 days.
A week after the dissolution of the congress, the CNE shared the electoral calendar, announced that the elections would be held on August 20. Candidates were invited to register for the electoral process. On June 2, Lasso, who according to pollster Perfiles de Opinion, in May 2023 had 15% approval rating, 10% credibility, announced that he would not seek re-election. On June 13, the registration phase ended with eight presidential tickets.
During Lasso’s short two-year term in office, Ecuador was plunged into a multidimensional crisis. To understand the current socio-political reality of the country and the significance of the upcoming elections for the country, Peoples Dispatch spoke to historian and university professor Pablo Meriguet.
Peoples Dispatch: We know that the incumbent president Guillermo Lasso is leaving office with an approval rating of around 15%. During his short two-year term in office, Ecuador witnessed the worsening of the economic crisis, security crisis, migration crisis and prison crisis. His administration has also been accused of corruption and of having links with drug-trafficking mafias. In this context, what was the reaction of the general public to his decision to dissolve the National Assembly and call for early general elections?
Pablo Meriguet: Well the people reacted with a calm uncertainty if one can call it that way. This is due to the fact that, as you rightly point out, there are a series of crises that are taking place in the country at the moment: security crisis, migration crisis, prison crisis, there is also an employment crisis, there are not enough job opportunities, in short, there is a feeling of helplessness among the population.
This is also due to the fact that there is a disorganization of the popular sectors at this moment. The sectors, which generally oppose neoliberal measures, come out to demonstrate at moments when the situation is totally intolerable or when there is an event that calls for mass mobilization. These mobilizations are not entirely organized, but are rather spontaneous demonstrations.
Therefore, whenever a program to advance to a proper neoliberal state begins to be carried out, I must stress here that in Ecuador neoliberalism has not been fully implemented as it has been in neighboring countries such as Colombia, Peru or Chile, although it is a project that is being continuously pushed to be implemented,…the population reacts against the measures that seek to achieve it. However, there are small measures that have been placed in a certain way in the public agenda, in the media, that have made people somewhat less combative towards them. Although it must be highlighted that, for example, a neoliberal labor reform, which is one of the great desires of the Ecuadorian bourgeoisie, has not even been proposed by the government because it knows that there will be a strong popular reaction against it.
So, I would say that the reaction of the people to Guillermo Lasso’s decision has been a little passive, but with a great deal of annoyance as well. The government knows that this will be reflected in the next elections so much so that Lasso and his party are not even running in the upcoming elections, neither for presidency nor for assembly members. I believe that the president’s party, which is in an absolute crisis, has preferred not to run so as not to encounter another political setback like the one in the last elections. Thus, I could say that it has been a decision that has cost Lasso not only the presidency, but also the reelection, and maybe the future of the party that brought him to the presidency. It remains to be seen what happens to the Creating Opportunities (CREO) party.
PD: When Lasso dissolved the National Assembly, social movements such as the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) warned that since Lasso is empowered to govern by decree, he could use the opportunity to strengthen neoliberal policies and favor business elites. Weeks later, we saw that he had signed a decree to reform the Organic Code of the Environment to allow exploitation of resources in Indigenous territories and protected areas without prior consultation. We also saw that Lasso had agreed to cede sovereign control of the Galapagos Islands to an independent trust, based in the United States, in exchange for a reduction in the national debt. What is your perspective on these decisions taken by Lasso? Do they represent an abuse of power?
PM: Every neoliberal project that is implemented by abusing power either through clear violence or through violence that does not seem so clear, but it is. For example, the loss of national sovereignty, which is what has happened in the case of Galapagos Islands and which is totally unconstitutional.
We know that power does not always respect what is legal, it rather exceeds the limits of what is legitimate. These decisions taken by Lasso seek to implement a neoliberal state in Ecuador. These decisions lack any sense of national dignity. Therefore, they must be condemned not only by the left that vindicates sovereignty, that vindicates the possibility of self-determination, but they must also be condemned by the sectors of the center and perhaps by some groups of the nationalist right or pro-sovereignty right, with a little dignity.
However, surprisingly, at this moment when election campaigns to elect the next president of Ecuador are taking place, the candidates are hardly talking about it. This already gives us an idea that there seems to be a sort of pact of silence with respect to this issue of Galapagos. Additionally, the most important political parties of the country have mentioned little or nothing about the Ecuador-US Partnership Act, which was approved in 2022 and which jeopardizes the autonomy of Ecuador in international politics.
PD: What are some of the major crises facing the country? What are the immediate expectations of the Ecuadorian working class from the new head of state and legislators?
PM: The crises that the working class is going through in Ecuador are the same crises that the working class is going through all over the world: job insecurity; lack of employment opportunities; lack of social security, appropriate public education and adequate public healthcare.
Of course, these crises that the capitalist system requires to reproduce itself have aggravated in a country like Ecuador because of two fundamental phenomena. The first is the lack of decent employment. In Ecuador, the majority of workers are engaged in the informal sector, which are jobs that are not recognized or are performed outside the formality of Ecuadorian legislation. And the second is that insecurity is hitting the country hard.
This is causing two simultaneous events. Number one is that there is a serious migration crisis in the country, which we have not seen since the great migration crisis of the late 90s, when the state practically collapsed. The second is that many young people, actually not only young people, from the poorer sectors are getting attracted by these criminal groups that try to take possession of commercial and other routes for the trafficking of substances.
In addition, there is also a strong presence of drug money in the Ecuadorian economy. I have heard economic analysts say that 1 out of every 4 USD that is moving in the Ecuadorian economy at the moment comes from illicit businesses. So, in this regard, we need to ask ourselves what is happening? Ecuador is entering into a crisis that is no longer just isolated crises, such as a security crisis or a migratory crisis, it is entering into an organic crisis. This organic crisis does not have a clear solution at this moment because there is no massive popular organization that can propose a solution to this problem.
Therefore, what may happen in the next months or years is what we call a passive revolution, a restructuring of the system to save itself. And this restructuring may not be peaceful or it may be violent. We are already living in a state of violence. We need to ask ourselves if this violence that is being experienced in the country is not already a form of restructuring from one state to another, that is to say, from a more liberal state to a neoliberal state. We need to ask ourselves what is the role that violence is actually playing.
We are experiencing a crisis of the very social fabric in Ecuador and this is happening precisely because they are trying to put the national economy into a neoliberal dynamic that it cannot bear at this moment, that it is impossible for such a poor and precarious country, with the deficiencies it has, to bear.
Read more: Who are the presidential candidates for Ecuador’s early elections?
PD: According to some recent surveys, of the eight presidential candidates, Luisa González, Otto Sonnenholzner, and Yaku Pérez are leading the voting intention. What’s the difference between these tickets?
PM: The opinion polls are very crazy. Who is in second, third or fourth place and with what voting intention varies from poll to poll. But what all polls say is that Luisa González, the candidate of the Citizens’ Revolution Movement led by former president Rafael Correa, is in first place in the voting intentions.
Now, the problem here is that Correístas learned in the previous election that if they do not win outright in the first round, they can get into trouble. Remember that in the previous election, Andrés Arauz got more than 30% of the vote, but failed to reach 40%. According to Ecuadorian electoral law, if a candidate obtains more than 40% and a 10% lead over the second-place runner, then he/she immediately wins the Presidency of the Republic. When Andrés Arauz did not secure 40% of the vote and Guillermo Lasso disputed the second place vote by vote with Yaku Pérez, some say that there was an election fraud, others say that there wasn’t, but well, that is another story, we know that Guillermo Lasso ended up winning the election and the presidency. So, Correísmo finds itself in a dilemma and it is the dilemma of whether or not it can win in the first round, and if there is a second round, what would happen? There is great uncertainty about it.
It seems that Luisa González and Andrés Arauz, the presidential ticket that is first in the polls, would try to do a re-institutionalization of the country, an institutional strengthening of the country. In this sense, the middle-class sectors and some parts of the poorer sectors could benefit from these measures. It is not a ticket that seeks a radical transformation of the society, but we can say that it is the option that is closer to the popular sectors, without saying that it is a proposal of the popular sectors or of the workers to be clearer.
Since other tickets represent the center right or the right-wing of the Ecuadorian political spectrum, they would rather seek to reinstitutionalize the country, but maintain a series of neoliberal programs and reforms.
Yaku Pérez is presenting himself as the third way, which is neither Correísta nor anti-Correísta. He would seek to establish a government focused on the elimination of large contracts with mining companies. His government would be similar to that of the green parties in Europe to give you an idea. These are the two candidates that must be taken into account.
Then of course, apart from these two, is Jan Topic. Jan Topic is sponsored by the Social Christian Party. He is a candidate who is building an image similar to that of Nayib Bukele, but in Ecuador. Jan Topic was a soldier in the French Foreign Legion, so his big political bet is the proposal that he is going to make a radical transformation in terms of security. He is a guy who belongs to the wealthiest families in Guayaquil and therefore, he has a series of political, familial, economical and other resources that will benefit him in this campaign.
Another candidate who is getting attention is Fernando Villavicencio, who is between the fourth and fifth position depending on the poll, some have even put him in third position also. He is a candidate that some have called the unofficial candidate of Guillermo Lasso.
