[News] Surging in Polls, Ecuador’s Moreno Flies to DC Amid Talk of Suspending Election

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://orinocotribune.com/with-anti-imf-candidate-surging-in-polls-ecuadors-moreno-flies-to-dc-amid-talk-of-suspending-election/
With
Anti-IMF Candidate Surging in Polls, Ecuador’s Moreno Flies to DC Amid Talk
of Suspending Election
By Alan Macleod – Feb 1, 2021

*Adding to worries that a Bolivia-style coup might be imminent in Ecuador,
Lenín Moreno will spend his final days in office in Washington, DC, where
he’s been meeting with members of the Biden administration.*

Polls show
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/anti-imperialist-left-set-triumph-ecuador-elections/274718/>
socialist,
anti-imperialist candidate Andrés Arauz to be the clear frontrunner in
Ecuador’s presidential elections slated to take place this Sunday,
February, 7. Some even suggest
<https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1352696139187953664> the
35-year-old might receive double the votes of his nearest competitor in the
first round of voting. Yet it now appears that the greatest danger to Arauz
is not his rival candidates, but the threat of authorities canceling the
election to prevent his victory.

International groups are flying
<https://thewire.in/world/ecuador-democracy-election-progressive-international-delegation-monitor>
in
to monitor the contest, scheduled for February 7, with some calling for
increased involvement of regional bodies like the Organization of American
States (OAS). However, given its role
<https://inthesetimes.com/article/oas-bolivia-coup-venezuela-maduro-trump-luis-almagro>
in
the far-right military coup
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/bolivia-latest-successful-us-backed-coup-latin-america/262773/>
in
Bolivia in 2019, it is far from clear whether they would improve or hinder
the process. Formed in 1948 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., the body
has consistently allied itself with U.S. foreign policy directives,
permanently suspending Cuba from its members in 1962. Since then, it has
often been used to legitimate American intervention in the region.

Only adding to the worries that a Bolivia-style coup might be imminent in
Ecuador is current president Lenín Moreno’s decision to spend his final few
days in office not in his homeland, but in Washington, D.C., where he has
been meeting
<https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210130-ecuador-leader-s-plane-makes-emergency-landing-in-us>
with
senior members of the new Biden administration, the managing director of
the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and OAS chief Luis Almagro, who is
currently under investigation
<https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/organisation-american-states-chief-under-investigation-role-bolivian-coup>
for
his part in Bolivia’s coup.

Rafael Correa, president of the country between 2007 and 2017, raised the
alarm on social media, warning
<https://twitter.com/MashiRafael/status/1355236863989186563> that the
National Electoral Council of Ecuador is meeting to discuss suspending the
elections because of Arauz’s imminent victory, while Moreno’s trip to
Washington is an attempt to get official approval for the plan.

“The OAS and Ecuador’s neoliberal president are looking to suspend
elections so as to cling on to power and stop the coming victory of the
Correa left. In Bolivia, a similar plan failed after the August general
strike proved that the coup regime could not withstand an uprising,” wrote
<https://twitter.com/OVargas52/status/1355511895021780992>*MintPress*’
Ollie Vargas from Bolivia.

RELATED CONTENT: Bodies in the Streets: IMF Imposed Measures Have Left
Ecuador Unable to Cope with Coronavirus
<https://orinocotribune.com/bodies-in-the-streets-imf-imposed-measures-have-left-ecuador-unable-to-cope-with-coronavirus/>

*Arauz: anti-poverty, anti-imperialism, anti-IMF*

The youthful Arauz is a disciple of Correa. Indeed, he chose Correa as his
running mate before the move was blocked by the National Electoral Council.
If Correa returns to Ecuador under the current administration, he will be
immediately imprisoned on corruption charges. Unlike Moreno, who received
billions of dollars from the organization, Arauz has promised to rid
Ecuador of the IMF, an organization he sees as predatory and a tool of the
United States. He is also proposing to greatly increase public spending,
raise taxes on the wealthy and increase capital controls on money leaving
the country. He aims to continue Correa’s anti-poverty and anti-imperialism
drives, suggesting he will reconnect with other leftist governments like
Bolivia and Venezuela and seek a more amicable relationship with China.
Thus, it is clear why both the IMF and U.S. government would wish to see
his victory stalled or prevented.
[image: Ecuador IMF Protest Photo of the day]A man holds an anti-IMF sign
depicting Lenin Moreno as a vulture at a protest in Quito, July 16, 2020.
Dolores Ochoa | AP

“Arauz will win unless they steal it from him,” said
<https://www.resumen-english.org/2021/01/ecuadors-election-promises-advance-for-socialism-in-latin-america/>
Professor
Steve Ellner, managing editor of the journal *Latin American Perspectives*.
“After all, Correa had a 60% favorable rating when he left office. Moreno
is completely discredited, and [conservative candidate Guillermo] Lasso has
been around too long to be considered a new face for business in politics —
and in addition is associated with global capital.”

RELATED CONTENT: IMF and Ecuador: State Terrorism
<https://orinocotribune.com/imf-and-ecuador-state-terrorism/>

*Ecuador’s tug of war*

Serving for ten years, Correa was the first president in modern history to
be re-elected in Ecuador and presided over a period of remarkable
tranquility for the often politically chaotic nation. In his time in
office, he managed to reduce
<https://cepr.net/press-release/ecuador-after-ten-years-of-president-correa-new-paper-examines-key-indicators-reforms-and-policy-changes/>
poverty
by 38% and extreme poverty by 47% while also doubling social spending.
Economic and political independence were key themes of his rule, too. He
renegotiated the government’s share of the nation’s substantial oil
revenues from 13% to 87%, hitting foreign energy corporations’ bottom lines
hard. He also ejected all American troops from the country and forged
regional ties with other like-minded neighboring nations. Ecuador also
offered asylum to a number of Western dissidents, among them Wikileaks
cofounder Julian Assange.

Correa’s vice-president, Moreno was elected on the express promise to carry
on his legacy. However, almost immediately, he reversed most of his
predecessor’s economic and political stances, inviting the IMF back in the
country and moving closer to the U.S. Poverty and unemployment grew again.
He also presided over one of the most inept COVID responses seen worldwide.
On orders from the IMF, he had previously slashed
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/ecuador-unable-to-cope-with-coronavirus-imf-measures/266570/>
public health budgets by 36% and expelled hundreds of Cuban doctors in an
effort to please the Trump administration. As a result, the country was
overwhelmed by COVID-19, with images of bodies being left in the streets
for days going viral worldwide.

“The situation in Ecuador is very fucked up. I don’t even have the means to
[explain in] English all of what’s happening. The new Minister of Health is
an incredible idiot. Coronavirus or not this country is in big trouble with
this wildly incompetent government,” said
<https://twitter.com/camilapress/status/1249380870395432960>
*MintPress*contributor
and Quito resident Camila Escalante.

Economic issues are the primary concern
<https://www.as-coa.org/articles/explainer-ecuadors-2021-presidential-elections>
for
voters in this election, with 32% identifying poverty and 25% unemployment
as their key worries. The country’s poverty rate jumped from 25.7% in
December 2019 to 58.2% in June 2020, with extreme poverty quadrupling over
the same period. A second issue is the ongoing COVID crisis, the latest
chapter of which revolves around vaccines meant for public hospitals being
diverted to private clinics in affluent areas, a scandal that has already
been dubbed <https://twitter.com/Ecuador_On_Q/status/1356043752557731840>
“vaccines
for the elites, cardboard coffins for the rest.”

Arauz’s two closest rivals for the presidency are Guillermo Lasso, a
65-year-old banker and former Coca-Cola executive who has a strong
following among the country’s upper-middle class and 51-year-old indigenous
leader Yaku Pérez. Pérez came to national attention after leading protests
against Moreno’s austerity measures in 2019. However, he has distanced
himself from the left. When asked to comment on Arauz’s plan to give $1,000
to one million Ecuadorian mothers who are heads of their households, he
replied <https://twitter.com/Ecuador_On_Q/status/1356077463235911681> that
he opposed the idea because they would “probably spend it all on beer that
same day.” Both trail Arauz in the polls, meaning that he could achieve
outright victory in one round of voting, a rare achievement in a
multi-party democracy. However, given the plots brewing, Arauz may have
more to fear from the U.S. and his own election authorities than from his
political rivals.

*Featured Image: Andres Arauz, candidate for the Union por la Esperanza
party, UNES, greets supporters during a rally in Salcedo, Ecuador, Jan. 31,
2021. Dolores Ochoa | AP*

(Mint Press News)
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/anti-imf-candidate-surging-ecuador-moreno-flies-to-dc-election/275005/>


Alan MacLeod

Alan MacLeod is a member of the Glasgow University Media Group. He is
author of "Bad News From Venezuela: 20 Years of Fake News and
Misreporting." His latest book, Propaganda in the Information Age: Still
Manufacturing Consent, was published by Routledge in May 2019.
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