Journalist Freddy Saguay’s question explodes in President Guillermo Lasso’s face like a stadium trumpet: “How does it feel to live all this rejection?” The subject barely managed to smile, cornered by the evidence of the shouts of displeasure coming from outside that chased him from the airport. “And when did the free and independent press decide to abandon me?”, the president seems to be asking.

In the event that the questionable character justifies the refusal of a citizen who defies presidential security with dignity, a second blast of the trumpet comes out of the exasperated lips of the communicator – which seems more like a shot from close range: “What? how does it feel to be a president who has not followed through on anything he has offered for the region? The presidential figure then transmutes for seconds to reveal a man who, like a lying child, is exposed on the public stage: a failed president caught up in the ease of his public lies.

This chapter of regional life, which has been promoted in the networks as a demand for local journalism despite so much government incompetence, was written in what could be the last official visit of President Guillermo Alberto Santiago Lasso Mendoza to the capital of Azuaya. He made an effort to come from the capital to oversee some work on the “re-built” health center, perhaps the smallest in the parish of San Joaquín. The budget for moving so much useless propagandist props will surely equal the structural adjustments that the Government of Encuentra claims to have made to that small health unit.

That day, almost simultaneously, about a hundred users of the José Carrasco Arteaga IESS Hospital had to form a long line in front of the only elevator in good condition to access the floors. The urgency is great, because – as in my case – we have to get prescriptions that we have to buy for members who miraculously got a bed.

Surely on August 20, Mr. President, you will know how it feels to not honor your word from the highest public pulpit.

That day, almost simultaneously, a disgruntled crowd loudly demanded security measures in the face of so much violence that spread through the El Arenal regional market, the largest in Austria, which was taken over by gangs of foreigners enforcing their laws, punctures and vaccines.

That day, in parallel, the local government was trying to solve the financing of spare parts for the tram, an innovative public transport system whose debt was to be absorbed by the administration of the then candidate Guillermo Lasso.

That day, at the same time, hundreds of carriers had difficulty traveling to any destination, due to the unparalleled abandonment we are experiencing overland in the southern provinces.

How does it feel, Your Excellency, Mr. President, that you did not fulfill anything, absolutely nothing of what was offered in the campaign, and on top of that you pushed the country to the unimaginable limit of a failed state? Surely on August 20, Mr. President, you will know how it feels to not honor your word from the highest public pulpit. (OR)