I voted for the first time with emotions. With the curiosity of someone doing for the first time what I have seen my elders do since the return to democracy, almost a decade before that first vote of mine. I remember that time watching the campaign and thus witnessing one of the fiercest verbal battles ever experienced: insults, especially among the finalists, did not go down with qualifiers like “clown” or “watery sperm”.

The next time I went to the elections with a more demanding, more professional, more informed vision. With a more critical and demanding attitude. And despite the avalanche of information I had as a political journalist, the decision was difficult, and the pangs of conscience due to non-execution were great.

Then followed the parade of elections, related to the constant fall of governments, which only intensified that feeling of guilt that I had to vote for an option, which is somewhat similar to my beliefs, but I am already fully aware that the campaign and its promises without measure are one thing and holding power is the second, where there is already a machine in operation that hardly or not at all considers these promises, with additions added to it by high economic interests and corruption. A machine whose rudder is very difficult to turn, and when this is achieved, the only thing that guarantees the iceberg of bureaucracy is certain shipwreck.

(…) go to the polls thinking about your family, the well-being of the people around you, and the country.

Tomorrow I will go to vote with fear. With a fear that undoubtedly affects the vast majority of Ecuadorians who do not want to be among the “collateral damage” of that urban war that we have watched with astonishment in recent months as it grows without apparent control. In which characters and officials are kidnapped or killed in the middle of the street and in broad daylight, to the extent that this campaign leaves us with the most heinous act that has happened in the country since that 1979 year when democracy was resumed, or wrongly: the assassination of the president candidate in the midst of proselytizing activities, on the central street of Quito before everyone’s stunned gaze. A fact that undoubtedly caused unexpected turns in the campaign and promoted proposals that seemed unlikely to take off. A bloody fact that weeks later could not be clarified by the investigations required by the state.

But Despite unfavorable security prospects, you must arm yourself with courage and go to the polls. For the option to create the best for the current moment of deep social crisis in which the country is. Bearing in mind that now less than ever we need to think about the messiah, even less, for a year and a half, which is the rest of the period in which Guillermo Lasso decided to advance the transfer of power and annul the Assembly, which must also be reshaped in this electoral process, this time with the mistrust generated by its historical effect.

Let none of this stop us. Not. Take precautions, pick up the pace, don’t linger after the election process and go vote with your family, the welfare of those around you and the country in mind. Ultimately, voting remains the greatest link we have to hope. (OR)