Revolución Ciudadana Dominates Electoral Consultation in Ecuador

With ample victories in the most important provinces and cities of the country, Revolución Ciudadana movement has managed to recover Pichincha, Guayas, and Manabí, among other towns, in the elections for mayors and prefects this Sunday.

Aquiles Alvarez in Guayaquil; Marcela Aguiñaga in Guayas; Pabel Muñoz in Quito; Paola Pabón in Pichincha; Leonardo Orlando in Manabí, are among others the great winners.

Official results are to be released in less than ten days, for which reason former President Rafael Correa, from Mexico, called to take care of the votes and be alert to the possibility of official fraud, due to a result that hits hard traditional elements of the oligarchy that support unpopular regimes such as the current one of Guillermo Lasso, who runs for re-election in 2025.

In these local elections, more than 13.4 million Ecuadorians were summoned to the polls to elect 23 provincial prefects and 221 mayors, in addition to renewing the seven members of the Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control, a body that appoints authorities such as the attorney general and the comptroller.

At the same time, Ecuadorians answered "Yes" or "No" to the eight questions of a referendum posed by the government to modify the Constitution in matters of security, democracy, state institutions, political movements and the environment, issues that could win the general approval and to which Lasso, who inspired them, would be forced to abide by.

These elections in Ecuador, where voting is mandatory, had 80% attendance, so 20% did not vote, on top of that a large number of voters who canceled their ballot or left it blank.

A few hours before the beginning of elections, a mayor-to-be from a coastal town was assassinated, two weeks after the murder of another candidate, both were Correa’s followers, when Ecuador faces an unprecedented crime wave derived from drug trafficking.

BIG LOSERS

In most areas of the country, political parties and movements that had held the most important positions for several decades were removed. In this sense, the greatest loser is the Social Christian Party (SCP), headed by Jaime Nebot, which led Guayaquil for more than 30 years, becoming its stronghold of political struggle.

Now, that position would be occupied by Aquiles Álvarez, who won nine points ahead of Cynthia Viteri, who couldn’t win re-election. Analysts and journalists agreed that with this defeat the legacy of that political store in Puerto Principal and the people of Guayaquil are seeking a change.

From the SCP there have been no reactions from its leaders.

Another loser of this electoral day is the Pachakutik movement that bet on the candidacies of Jorge Yunda and Guillermo Churuchumbi to reach the Mayor of Quito and the Prefecture of Pichincha. In fact, Yunda congratulated Muñoz on his virtual victory for Mayor's Office. Churuchumbi is awaiting the results.

The low vote for Jorge Guamán, who was the prefect of Cotopaxi, this time for the Mayor of Latacunga, demonstrates the blow of that group in that essential area for the rainbow movement.

There are still no concrete results of the referendum carried out in parallel, in which, for example, the extradition of fellow countrymen will be decided, banned in Ecuador for eight decades; the reduction of the number of deputies, the control of political movements and the withdrawal of powers to the CCPSC.

If constitutional reforms proposed by Lasso are passed, Congress will have a year to implement the changes.

The CNE, I repeat, has ten days to count the votes and announce the results, after resolving possible challenges. The ceremony of taking office of the elected authorities is scheduled for May 14^th.

With 92.87% of the checked votes in Guayaquil, Aquiles Álvarez, candidate for Guayaquil Mayor of Revolución Ciudadana movement, prevailed over the current mayor Cynthia Viteri, of the Social Cristiano-Madera Party of Guerrero (SCM-PG) in the sectional elections of February 5^th.

Likewise, with 91.29% of checked votes, Marcela Aguiñaga led the counting of votes of Guayas Prefecture: she reached 34.54%. While the current prefect, Susana González, from SCM-PG, had 25.45% of valid votes.

With these results, Social Cristiano would lose political hegemony in the canton and province. The SCP has remained in the Guayaquil Mayor's Office since 1992 with León Febres-Cordero, Jaime Nebot, and Cynthia Viteri; and in the Guayas Prefecture, 21 years in two stages: with Nicolás Lapentti, Carlos Luis Morales, and Susana González.

Álvarez and Aguiñaga were this morning at the Provincial Delegation of the CNE greeting the authorities; they said they were guarding their votes.

“We continue with the trend. The trend does not go down, there are ten points of difference, both in the mayor's office and in the prefecture; What's more, in the prefecture it has expanded a little, we are almost reaching 11 with a marked trend, that is, if the trend continues like this, it’s very difficult for the results to be reversed at this time,” said Aguiñaga.

“We are going to be vigilant, we have collected all the records, there are also our computer centers and also digitization for our quick count,” she added.

The big winners in this electoral contest are the candidates of the Citizen Revolution movement, whose main leader is former President Rafael Correa. Pabel Muñoz and Paola Pabón virtually took over the Mayor of Quito and the Prefecture of Pichincha respectively.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff