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<font size="1"><a href="https://orinocotribune.com/with-anti-imf-candidate-surging-in-polls-ecuadors-moreno-flies-to-dc-amid-talk-of-suspending-election/">https://orinocotribune.com/with-anti-imf-candidate-surging-in-polls-ecuadors-moreno-flies-to-dc-amid-talk-of-suspending-election/</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">With Anti-IMF Candidate Surging in Polls,
Ecuador’s Moreno Flies to DC Amid Talk of Suspending Election <br></h1>By Alan Macleod – Feb 1, 2021
</div><div class="gmail-content"><div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><p><strong>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.</strong></p>
<p>Polls <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/anti-imperialist-left-set-triumph-ecuador-elections/274718/">show</a> 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 <a href="https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1352696139187953664" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suggest</a> 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.</p>
<p>International groups are <a href="https://thewire.in/world/ecuador-democracy-election-progressive-international-delegation-monitor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">flying</a> 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 <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/oas-bolivia-coup-venezuela-maduro-trump-luis-almagro" target="_blank" rel="noopener">role</a> in the far-right military <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/bolivia-latest-successful-us-backed-coup-latin-america/262773/">coup</a> 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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210130-ecuador-leader-s-plane-makes-emergency-landing-in-us" target="_blank" rel="noopener">meeting</a> 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 <a href="https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/organisation-american-states-chief-under-investigation-role-bolivian-coup" target="_blank" rel="noopener">investigation</a> for his part in Bolivia’s coup.</p>
<p>Rafael Correa, president of the country between 2007 and 2017, raised the alarm on social media, <a href="https://twitter.com/MashiRafael/status/1355236863989186563" target="_blank" rel="noopener">warning</a> 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.</p>
<p>“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,” <a href="https://twitter.com/OVargas52/status/1355511895021780992" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a><i>MintPress</i>’ Ollie Vargas from Bolivia.</p>
<p><a title="Bodies in the Streets: IMF Imposed Measures Have Left Ecuador Unable to Cope with Coronavirus" href="https://orinocotribune.com/bodies-in-the-streets-imf-imposed-measures-have-left-ecuador-unable-to-cope-with-coronavirus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED CONTENT: Bodies in the Streets: IMF Imposed Measures Have Left Ecuador Unable to Cope with Coronavirus</a></p>
<p><strong>Arauz: anti-poverty, anti-imperialism, anti-IMF</strong></p>
<p>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.</p>
<img src="https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/AP_20199016874528_edited.jpg" alt="Ecuador IMF Protest Photo of the day" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="392" height="221">A man holds an anti-IMF sign depicting Lenin Moreno as a vulture at a protest in Quito, July 16, 2020. Dolores Ochoa | AP
<p>“Arauz will win unless they steal it from him,” <a href="https://www.resumen-english.org/2021/01/ecuadors-election-promises-advance-for-socialism-in-latin-america/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Professor Steve Ellner, managing editor of the journal <i>Latin American Perspectives</i>.
“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.”</p>
<p><a title="IMF and Ecuador: State Terrorism" href="https://orinocotribune.com/imf-and-ecuador-state-terrorism/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED CONTENT: IMF and Ecuador: State Terrorism</a></p>
<p><strong>Ecuador’s tug of war</strong></p>
<p>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 <a href="https://cepr.net/press-release/ecuador-after-ten-years-of-president-correa-new-paper-examines-key-indicators-reforms-and-policy-changes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reduce</a> 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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/ecuador-unable-to-cope-with-coronavirus-imf-measures/266570/">slashed</a>
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.</p>
<p>“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,”<a href="https://twitter.com/camilapress/status/1249380870395432960" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> said</a> <i>MintPress</i>contributor and Quito resident Camila Escalante.</p>
<div>
<p>Economic issues are the<a href="https://www.as-coa.org/articles/explainer-ecuadors-2021-presidential-elections" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> primary concern</a> 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 <a href="https://twitter.com/Ecuador_On_Q/status/1356043752557731840" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dubbed</a> “vaccines for the elites, cardboard coffins for the rest.”</p>
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<p>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 <a href="https://twitter.com/Ecuador_On_Q/status/1356077463235911681" target="_blank" rel="noopener">replied</a> 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.</p>
<p><em>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</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/anti-imf-candidate-surging-ecuador-moreno-flies-to-dc-election/275005/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">(Mint Press News)</a></p>
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Alan MacLeod </span>
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<p>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.</p>
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