Ecuadorians voted Sunday for local elections and a key referendum that will decide, among other things, whether the country accepts the extradition of drug traffickers to the United States.
According to the National Electoral Council (CNE), 80.74% of some 13.4 million voters came to vote, including President Guillermo Lasso, in his hometown of Guayaquil (southwest). The electoral authorities have ten days to count the votes and announce the results.
Voters must nominate their mayors, municipal councilors, and provincial prefects (governors) who will take office in May for a four-year term.
The stakes are above all local, but will inevitably constitute a test for the right-wing president, in power since 2021, and whose unpopularity has reached records (80% according to a latest poll).
The vote comes in a worrying context of growing criminal violence in the country, linked to drug trafficking.
A coastal town mayoral candidate was assassinated on Saturday, two weeks after another candidate was assassinated, also in a coastal town.
“The country is marked by insecurity and this is due to the criminal mafias that are developing,” a voter at a polling station in northern Quito, Jorge Cevallos, a 63-year-old lawyer, told AFP.
At the same time as this election, voters must decide on eight questions, within the framework of a referendum convened in November by President Lasso, on various themes of security, politics and the environment.
At the center of the debate, the extradition of Ecuadorians, prohibited for eight decades.
According to a poll conducted on Saturday, the results of which were published after the end of the vote on Sunday, 66% of those questioned were in favor of yes to extradition.
As part of his fight against drug trafficking, President Lasso advocates the surrender of Ecuadorians to other countries if they commit offenses related to international organized crime.
The objective is extradition to the United States for drug traffickers, with the risk for them of languishing there in prison for many years, in harsh conditions and without the possibility of corrupting their guards.
The weapon had been used successfully in neighboring Colombia from the 1990s, acting as a particularly deterrent against the masterminds of trafficking in this country, the world’s largest producer of cocaine.
Ecuador has seen a spike in trafficking-related violence and crime in recent years, along with drug seizures. The homicide rate has almost doubled between 2021 and 2022. Prisons are the scene of bloody and recurring massacres between gangs of rival prisoners, under the thumb of dangerous Mexican cartels.
The head of state wants to “weaken and dismantle the more than 25 criminal gangs currently operating” in Ecuador, Karen Sichel, a legal officer at the presidency, told AFP.
Used four times since 2008, the referendum “will be a form of evaluation of the government” which, within the unicameral Congress, faces a majority but fragmented opposition, analyzes political scientist Santiago Basabe for AFP.
The vote takes place “in an unfavorable context” for President Lasso, with “fragile governability”, “inequalities and poverty”, as well as “insecurity due to the presence of organized crime”, declared to the AFP another political scientist, Santiago Cahuasqui.
The presidential party has only 13 of the 137 deputies in the National Assembly. The opposition, led by “Citizen Revolution” which supports former socialist president Rafael Correa (2007-2017), called for a no vote.
Among the questions submitted to the vote, President Lasso wishes to reduce the number of deputies, a proposal rejected by the opposition.
The referendum also intends to define whether local political movements (the country has 272 of them, for seven national parties), must be controlled by the electoral body, as are the parties, while some of these formations, often tiny, are suspected to be linked to drug trafficking.
Mr. Lasso also wants to reduce the powers of the CPCCS, a body created under the Correa administration, responsible in particular for appointing various authorities such as the public prosecutor, the state comptroller, the mediator and the members of the national electoral commission (CNE ).
On the environment, the referendum proposes to include humid regions of jungles and marshes in the list of protected areas. It also proposes to pay compensation to indigenous people and communities who protect nature. Crossed by the Andes Cordillera, Ecuador is also home to a vast Amazonian zone, threatened by oil exploitation and illegal mining.
02/06/2023 01:01:51 – Quito (AFP) – © 2023 AFP