How are you going to do that? I heard the question asked by most of the candidates for the President of the Republic for the elections on August 20, that is, those who made themselves heard in public spaces without agreed questions. And the answers to this specific request, necessary to know the real scope of their proposals, are very diverse and somewhat unusual.

News about the 2023 presidential election in Ecuador

“Without shaking hands,” said one of them with an element of complacency, accompanied by disdain for possible opposition or power struggles, because “I am the president,” he repeated energetically, making those of us who had heard it a while ago shudder. “At godfathers and godfathers,” answered another, who thinks that this and his business experience are enough. A cliche phrase, which can be used in countless scenarios. “To talk to all sectors,” said another, who gave something valuable to the process that includes the exchange of criteria with other functions of the state, especially the legislative one, in which none of the current presidential candidates can remotely confirm that they will have their own majority, even with their allies, because the scenario that comes after the death on the cross is a fragmented National Assembly again, in which negotiations will be inevitable.

The campaign, like the paper, suffers all in terms of promises and supposed life stories that also give supposed intellectual capacity and trajectory to those who set out in pursuit of rule for 16 months, a period of very limited action, no doubt.

Of the two key moments in this situation, we are going through the first, the least meaningful, that of propaganda, which is managed by political marketing, which, as always happens, here and there, prioritizes, sweetens, and even exaggerates without the slightest remorse the character and trajectory of the candidate. He tells voters what they want to hear and creates strategies to minimize the impact of what might call into question his actual executive ability, in the case of presidential candidates; both legislative and supervisory, in the case of those who are fighting for a return or a new departure to the Assembly.

It is a moment of promise, amid a sea of ​​insecurity, unemployment and social disillusionment, where everyone claims to have a magic formula to overcome it in 16 months and then go home if the citizens don’t like the “how”.

It is precisely the “how” that everyone is avoiding now that governs the second key moment. The day after the victory, when you have to take control of the country and start things first, while the promised variants are applied, in a kind of tire change without stopping the vehicle. This is the time to manage politics, to achieve the manageability that was unattainable for the outgoing government and to strive for governance: let everyone involved in the process participate in the solution, regardless of color or slogan.

That second moment should be a moment of political maturity. It’s useless to look for it now, even unkind to bars, because these are the times of cheap deals where anything goes. (OR)