Is Ecuador a barometer for other electoral processes in Latin America? | WORLD

With nine electoral processes this 2021 in Latin America, experts disagree on whether a possible victory of the correista candidate, Andrés Arauz, in the elections Sunday, may be an indication of a shift to the left on the continent after the cases of Mexico, Argentina and Bolivia.

“I believe that (the election) represents a breaking point, to continue with that tendency to recover Latin America that what we call the ‘conservative restoration’ ripped it from us by all means, “said the former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, whose pupil is a favorite in most polls.

The elections on Sunday, from which presumably not a president will come out but two candidates for the second round, have in this sense become a new local battle between correistas and non-correistas, but its incidence at the continental level is arguable.

A new socialism?

“The weight of Ecuador in terms of geopolitics is quite fragile,” explains political scientist César Ulloa, from the University of the Americas (UDLA), by putting an end to premature interpretations of a possible victory for Correismo.

And he assures that to assume an election as “pendular”, one would first have to see the difference in votes between both fields: “If the result is very similar to that of 2017, it would not mark a course to the left or to the right.”

Ruth Hidalgo, dean of the School of Political Science and International Relations at the same university, agrees with him that “she is not sure if there will actually be a change” because “surveys show that in Ecuador there are many people from the center.”

“They do not like the Socialism of the XXI century very much but it is not related to a right-wing position,” he says.

The electoral process in Ecuador, in which president, vice president, 137 assembly members and five members of the Andean Parliament will be elected, comes after four years of rupture with the correísmo of current president Lenín Moreno, promoted to the Presidency by that movement but from which later it separated to apply a more pragmatic policy.

So, technically, at least in the vote for president, Ecuador has not stopped voting for the correista left since 2006, when Correa assumed power for the first time.

The fear among Ecuadorian conservatives is that the result of Mexico (2018), Argentina (2019) or Bolivia (2020) will be repeated, and correísmo will settle again with all its consequences for the market economy and freedoms.

An independent researcher of the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) of Argentina, and who accompanied Correísmo in the 2017 campaign, Daniel Kersffeld would still not see a genuine return to XXI Century Socialism by Correa and the late Hugo Chávez, but to a left more in line with current circumstances, less combative.

“Kirchnerism does not rule through Cristina, but through Alberto Fernández. The same thing happens with the MAS in Bolivia, with Luis Arce. And in the case of Ecuador, the same would happen with Arauz ”, he compares.

Now “we are looking for these figures who do not generate so much controversy, so much friction with the neoliberal rights”, with “a greater commitment to dialogue and eventually agreement”, under the reading of an international context very different from that of one or two ago decades.

First continental fire test

Latin America opens an electoral calendar this Sunday that includes five presidential processes (Ecuador, Peru, Honduras, Nicaragua and Chile) and another four of partial scope (El Salvador, Mexico, Argentina and Paraguay).

Like the vote in the Chilean referendum in October, all are a priori an indication of regional political preferences.

Unconvinced that a victory for Arauz will actually take place, Hidalgo believes that if this were the case, Ecuador “could definitely serve as a compass” and affirms that Latin America would go “towards the recovery of the trend of 21st Century Socialism. Without a doubt ”.

But unlike Kersffled, he does not believe that there is a new version of that socialism, rather, “a story that they want to place in the region due to the innumerable mistakes they have made” in the countries they governed.

“Perhaps Fernández does not have the same aggressiveness as the Kirchners, but Argentina is as it is, a product of its economic model and its vision of fundamental rights and freedom of rights, which is not going to change.”

All of them, reaffirms the analyst, including the Mexican Manuel López Obrador, “respond to a philosophy that has not changed.”

Effect of the pandemic

And if dissatisfaction with governments such as those of Mauricio Macri, Jair Bolsonaro or Sebastián Piñera influenced the always unpredictable Ecuador, and other countries of Latin AmericaThe devastating effects of a pandemic that has undermined the social foundations throughout the continent will also weigh this year.

Unemployment, poverty and corruption in the health systems have been the dominant note in the region, with a magnitude that turns the pandemic into a “government-grave”, regardless of whether they are from the left or the right.

“More than a turn to the left, it is a demand of the people, increasingly greater, to reduce inequalities,” says the political scientist of FLACSO Ecuador, Santiago Basabe.

In this context, he sees “a very close possibility” in his country of “conflicts and outbreaks of political instability”, as happened in October 2019, which showed great disagreement with the decisions of the Moreno Executive.

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