Mountains fall, volcanoes erupt, rivers flood fields and cities, crime flourishes, insecurity kills trust. The father of the family fears for his children, the neighbor does not trust the neighbor, tragedies kill people. These are all shocks. Television channels are saturated with red news. There is no space to consider different topics. The peace that was our pride and our refuge was missing.

During this time, politicians argue, MPs block initiatives, archive what they are not interested in and promote things that fit the party’s projects, give speeches and think they are showing off. Negative leadership grows like mushrooms. There are no suggestions. Everything is criticism and a vengeful spirit. Interventions, almost without exception, revolve around hatred, resentment and arguments. We are overwhelmed by mediocrity.

And if we try democracy…

Every interview is confusing, depressing and often undignified; almost everyone moves between common places, tolerated lies, half-truths, assumptions and rumours. And the idea that each character is the owner of the world and the owner of all reasons.

So, I wonder if Ecuador is sustainable, is it possible to have a country without solidarity, without tolerance and space for others? Is it possible to have a republic in which legislation is enacted in such a way as to obstruct any initiative? Is coexistence possible if the outstretched hand is replaced by a fist grasping a rock or club? Are we a society if bigotry, excessive shouting, threats and unemployment rule? Are we a society if we don’t understand each other?

Betrayal

A country without dedicated elites beyond their own interests, without leaders who go beyond their minimal ambitions… is not a country.

I seriously doubt that the political state, that of parties and movements, is an authentic state, ours. I doubt that the one who works, saves, cultivates or studies is the same one who destroys himself, the one who exhausts himself by seeking the liquidation of his rivals. Is this a democracy? Their forms remain, the camouflage of choice, the speech of ambition, radicalism, pride; but nothing is left of the authentic representation of something they call the people, which they have turned into a mass subject to all manipulations, that mass whose illusions are turned into arguments for the consolidation of power and the contempt of rivals.

The country risk of Ecuador is approaching the threshold of 2000 points

A state without institutions is not a state. A community without trust in laws cannot be a republic. Without positive leadership, without dialogue in order to reach a minimum consensus, what we pompously call the “Rule of Law” is only a space containing enemies who destroy each other, it is a repository of people’s disappointments, those people in whom sovereignty and legitimacy are said to be lying.

A country without dedicated elites beyond its own interests, without leaders who go beyond their minimal ambitions and without greatness, is not a country. It may be a territory where we destroy ourselves, hate each other, clash. It is a gaming table on which some bet on dice, and on which that reliable and hard-working being called the citizen always loses.

Is this dream that they called Ecuador possible? (OR)