This Sunday, Ecuadorians are again called to the polls for the second round of the presidential election, in which the candidate of the Civil Revolution Movement Luisa Gonzalez, ally of former President Rafael Correa, seeks to assert her favorite status against the businessman Daniel Noboa which, against all odds, has reached this final round of elections.

Gonzalez received more than 33 percent of the vote in the first round on Aug. 20. demonstrating the extent to which “Correaismo” continues to be a popular movement in Ecuador, from which Correa himself remains distant, who currently lives in Belgium and has several pending legal cases in the South American country.

Korreismo emphasized that trials for corruption have begun against former leaders. They are part of political persecution and became a guarantor of social development. In the latest televised debate, Gonzalez said he wants to combat insecurity by improving aspects such as job creation.

The surge in violence, sparked by gang violence and also spreading to prisons (the current government declared a state of emergency in the prison system in July), has become main theme of the campaign, especially after presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated a few days before the first round.

Noboa, who received 23 percent of the vote in the first round., promised during the debate to strengthen border controls and work with countries in the region to build alliances. The first six are arrested for Villavicencio’s murder. killed in prison last weekhad Colombian citizenship, which would show the relationship between groups from different countries.

Actually, two out of three Ecuadorians do not feel safe walking alone at night, According to Gallup’s 2022 Safety Survey, the year ended with the homicide rate rising to more than 25 per 100,000 residents, up from 13.7 recorded in 2021, with no statistical improvement expected by 2023. expected.

For this Sunday’s elections, the government and the National Electoral Council (CNE) have developed a new security plan that takes into account deployment of approximately 53,700 police officers across the country. Authorities also expect close controls on access to polling stations, so they are advising voters not to carry bags or backpacks to avoid delays.

Electoral College They will open at 7:00 (local time) and close only at 17:00. For voting abroad, schedules will be tailored to the specific country.

In the first round, an unprecedented telematic voting system was tested abroad, but a number of technical problems forced the Ecuadorian authorities to retreat and resort to surveys again and in person. On the first day, out of 409,000 potential voters, only 44,000 registered in the system, and of these, only 12,000 were able to exercise their right to vote.

Technical glitches also forced repeated parliamentary elections for expats, who have the right to elect their representatives to the National Assembly. Revolution Ciudadana is currently the party with the most seats, with 48, although no matter what happens this Sunday, it will not be able to reach the absolute majority threshold (69) on its own.

Both the members of the assembly and the people holding the positions of president and vice president of Ecuador will in any case have shorter period than usual, since we are not talking about the beginning of a new period as such, but about covering the two years remaining from the previous one.

This is established by a constitutional order, which the outgoing president resorted to in mid-May. Guillermo Lasso, who appealed to the so-called “crossed death.” dissolve the National Assembly and thereby avoid the start of the political process. This initiative implied a double advantage in elections in the event of a “serious political crisis.”

Lasso, who initially floated a possible re-election bid that he eventually dropped, has largely stayed away from the campaign trail. focused on his official agenda as president and a statement of new developments in the commercial or diplomatic field. On the security front, it has stepped up efforts in main prisons.

(Europe Press)