I’ve seen hundreds of polls asking people about their needs, what the state should provide us, or what their expectations and hopes are. The answers are always about security, public works, economic progress, health, education, etc. I have never seen a recorded percentage, however small, of people asking for “more freedom”. It is likely that people in countries ruled by harsh dictatorships will answer that way, but on the other hand, it is difficult to conduct such polls there. I am not aware that these results can come from “closed” questionnaires, in which the possible answers are limited to a predetermined range of options, among which “more freedom” is not included.

In reality, I believe that this very important condition, this basic human right is skewed because, I’m talking about Ecuador, it is assumed that we are free and why would we ask for something that we already have. We have been an independent state for almost two hundred years, and for less than a quarter of that time we were ruled by dictatorships, which never reached the excesses of despotism in other countries. In fact, the Freedom House Foundation, in its index of freedom, qualifies this equinox country as “free”, with a score of 70 out of a possible 100. Bravo! But let’s not claim victory too loudly, because that hasn’t always been the case so far in the millennium. This is a new state acquired only in 2021, after two decades of being classified as “partially free”. That NGO is not the Vatican, but our perception is that its assessments are fair. Our score is right on the border between the two categories and even worse, other analyzes show that a third of the population can’t wait for a return to the dictatorship that pushed us into the densest authoritarianism in history. They will say that there was no dictatorship here, because it was a “democratically” elected regime, true, but here the Aristotelian difference between democracy and republic seems clear, for the former, election results are sufficient, while the latter also requires the rule of law, the rule of law, and the separation of powers , among other conditions. And it wasn’t.

Let’s not forget that in 2007, an enthusiastic 80 percent of the population, including a similar percentage of intellectuals and businessmen, enthusiastically supported handing over all powers to a bunch of skorojevics, not listening to those who warned of the impending danger. If we got out of the pond, it is thanks to the drop in oil prices, otherwise we would still be singing Homeland, the land of the world. We are bipolar, lukewarm and unfaithful lovers of freedom. If one were to assess the possibility of the next government being “firm-handed”, no doubt a significant majority would support the proposal. There are those who believe that freedom can be postponed, just for a while, until we start the process of development and security, which is a mistake., since the most developed and safest countries are also the freest republics. In other words, freedom is eaten, lived everyday, it is a product of the first need. (OR)