In the world of plants, natural pruning – the dying off and shedding of branches – enables their healthy growth in two fundamental ways. Wood achieves a higher level of illumination and uses water more efficiently. Artificially planted and cultivated forests lack certain natural elements that enable self-pruning, and artificial pruning becomes necessary.

According to Latinobarómetro 2023, a public opinion survey conducted in 18 Latin American countries, the region is experiencing a democratic regression; that is, only 37% of the respondents claim that they prefer democracy to some other form of government. In Ecuador, we are more reckless: 37% of the respondents claim that they do not care about either the democratic regime or the non-democratic one. José Stalin or José Mujica, we don’t care.

This vital attitude towards democracy has allowed several parasitic plants to present themselves as strong candidates in the presidential elections who, among other anodyne promises, offer Ecuadorization as a way out of the current crisis, and the allelopathic plant that they maintain as the government’s only plan to eradicate crime with sticks. Other plants, those that provide food, those that fertilize the earth, those that prevent landslides and floods, could not count on more than a handful of votes and therefore are not candidates either.

For those who, like me, have no idea about plants and have two or three that miraculously survive, it is important to clarify that a parasitic plant is dependent on another plant and is therefore not autonomous. In human terms, she needs her leader’s image on T-shirts, banners and advertisements and his explicit support on social media to get some light; in turn, you must follow their orders. An allelopathic plant, on the other hand, is a lethal plant that inhibits the growth of another species by means of a deterrent; where that plant grows, almost nothing else grows. It is the plant equivalent of a mercenary who knows little about leadership unless it comes in the form of a slave yoke.

According to the horticultural experts I consulted to write these important considerations, the most logical changes that must be achieved in Ecuador, such as equality before the law and the best distribution of resources, can only be achieved by eradicating the highest levels of corruption. Since 1978, Latinobarómetro reminds, 21 former presidents have been convicted of corruption cases, and 20 did not complete their mandate. This implies that a candidate who is related, by any degree of separation, to the convicted former president should not be elected.

We need healthy, fertile plants, capable of producing oxygen and preparing their own food. In a political sense, this means that we need people with the capacity to produce, not steal, with a tendency to create, not destroy. We need radical pruning to eliminate from the political spectrum the organic debris that produces only shadow and desolation. Come, then, instead of scissors, a blue ball; instead of luck, our determination. (OR)