The inhabitants of the 821 rural parishes of Ecuador will receive this February 5, 2023 an eighth ballot to choose the members of their respective Vestrythe rural parochial decentralized autonomous government (GAD), made up of five members.
These add up to 4,109 vowels. Only two of the rural parishes will choose seven members because they have more than 50,000 inhabitants and are Calderon and Conocotoin Quito, in which 130,583 and 77,188 people are summoned to vote, in their order.
The Parish Council is a body with legal status “of public law, with political, administrative and financial autonomy”, according to art. 63 of the Organic Code of Territorial Organization, Autonomy and Decentralization (Cootad), in force since October 2010.
They are summoned to this election 3’145,571 people aged 16 or over registered in the 821 rural parishes of Ecuador, belonging to 181 cantons.
There are 40 cantonal jurisdictions that do not have rural parishes.
Calderón has more voters than cantons such as Azogues, the capital of the province of Cañar, which has 66,323 voters, or Guaranda, the capital of Bolívar, which has 83,141.
Meanwhile, in several localities only two lists were registered to choose the five members of their Parish Council and substitutes, as in the case of the Santa Maria Island (better known as Floreana)in the canton of San Cristóbal, in the Galapagos, which has the lowest register in the country, with a total of 125 voters, of which 72 are men and 53 are women. A single Vote Receiving Board (JRV) will be formed there.
Santa María Island has an area of 173 km2. It is one of the oldest (1.5 million years), unlike the younger portions of land in the western Galapagos.
In the list of the twelve rural parishes with the least voters and population in the country there are nine towns located in border provinces, such as Puerto Bolívar and Puerto Rodríguez, both rural parishes in the Putumayo canton, in the province of Sucumbíos, which have 128 and 255 voters, in their order.
The other seven are La Sofía (150) in the Sucumbíos canton, in the province of the same name; Pucapamba (222) from the Chinchipe canton, in Zamora Chinchipe; Cinco de Junio/Uimbi (249) from the San Lorenzo canton, in Esmeraldas; San Miguel de Cuyes (199) and Bermejos (261) from the Gualaquiza canton, Zúñac (254) from the Morona canton and San Jacinto de Wakambeis (261) from the San Juan Bosco canton, the latter four in Morona Santiago.
The top 12 of those with the fewest voters include the rural parish of Sumaco (244) in the Quijos canton, in the province of Napo, and Tomás de Berlanga (211), in the Isabela canton, also in the Galapagos.
In all of them, a single JRV will be formed, which is why it is a reason for meeting all the inhabitants of those localities.
Of the twelve with the fewest voters, nine are in provinces of the Amazon region, two in the insular region of Galapagos and one on the coast..
Some of these parish GADs have websites or have profiles on the social network Facebook.
This rural parish in the Gualaquiza canton, in Morona Santiago, has a profile on the social network Facebook.
The profile of the Tomás de Berlanga parish GAD, in Isabela.
A view of the rural parish of Isla Santa María, in Floreana, which is part of the San Cristóbal canton, in the Galapagos.
What are the twelve rural parishes with the most voters?
The first seven positions of this ranking They are occupied by the rural parishes of the capital of Ecuador, Quito: Calderón, Conocoto, Tumbaco (49,945), Cumbayá (34,500), San Antonio (29,487), Pomasqui (29,206) and Amaguaña (25,305).
In the top 12 of those with the most voters are Colonche (25,276) and Manglaralto (24,733) from the canton of Santa Elena, in the province of the same name; Baños (23,078) of the Cuenca canton, in Azuay; Posorja (19,963) from the Guayaquil canton, in Guayas; and, Charapotó (18,311) of the Sucre canton, in Manabí.
One of the problems of rural localities is that they feel excluded from the urban development of the respective cantons to which they belong.
One of the objectives of creating this level of government is to guarantee the state presence even in the most remote points of the national geography.
There is a big difference between the rural parish with the most voters, which is Calderón, in Quito, with 130,583 voters, and Santa María Island, in San Cristóbal, with 125 voters.
Of the list of 821 rural parishes, at least two meet one of the requirements to be cantons, that of a resident population in the territory of the future canton of at least fifty thousand inhabitants, as indicated in number 1 of art. 22 of the Cootad. These are Calderón and Conocoto.
However, the norm includes an exception that applies in the Amazon and border provinces. In these cases, the future canton will be able to accommodate a population of ten thousand inhabitants.
Hence, there are cantons with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants in those portions of the country. There are also some in provinces that are not on the border or in the Amazon because they were formed before the Cootad came into force, such as Déleg, in Cañar, or Colimes, in Guayas, which have 6,843 and 26,566 inhabitants, according to their population projections for 2023. (I )
Source: Eluniverso
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
