If it is not true and ben trovato It’s a phrase attributed to Giordano Bruno that applies perfectly to the correista campaign slogan. The axis of this is to offer a return to the supposedly ideal past, to instill in the voters an image of the candidate as a person who knows what to do and how to do it. This is the main content of the propaganda texts circulating on the networks, and she tirelessly repeats this in interviews and in her public appearances. The goal is to restore and strengthen the collective imagination that was tried to be built during the ten years of government through mass propaganda, and above all through the tireless presidential speech. It is enough to recall the assembly of the Sabbaths to understand the importance attached to that task. An imaginary country was drawn that marched steadily thanks to the president who pulled all the strings.

Correato was a period of elaboration of what in terms of political communication is called a story. This is not limited to information about facts and works, as corresponds to accounting to the principals. The story is a construction of an alternative reality. There is no room in that for the negative aspects that always exist. In the specific case, it could not be explained that public consumption could grow thanks to the abundant funds that came from the high price of oil on the world market and aggressive and irresponsible borrowing. An allusion to these and other objective facts would prevent the goal of instilling in the population that alternative vision which, strictly speaking, is a belief and not a finding.

By rebuilding the story in the campaign, it once again appeals to beliefs, to the subjective and vulnerable part of people. They do not point to rationality, because that would force them to come clean and present the limitations that whoever occupies the Presidency will have in the coming period. In their favor are the poor economic and social results of the governments of Lenín Moreno and Guillermo Lasso and the devastating effects of the pandemic. Under these conditions, a story depicting a fantastic past may be more effective than proposals that offer a different future.

It’s amazing that most of the other candidates haven’t made questioning that narrative a central aspect of their campaigns. Apparently, as some of them said, they do not want to turn it into a contest between Correísmo and anti-Correísmo, supposedly to lead it towards issues of greater importance and interest to the citizenry. But they would surely change their minds if they stopped to think about the power that a story can achieve in a population that is overwhelmed by its economic situation. None of them set out to disarm that story, much less build an alternative one. Elections, in any part of the world, have an extremely emotional, subjective content, and because of this, appeals to feelings can influence much more than technically developed programs. Recognizing their voters as sheep clearly expresses where they are aiming. (OR)