Today is a decisive day for the future of the country. We will use the right to vote in special circumstances, in an environment of uncertainty, indignation and deep sadness, for the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio, candidate for the President of the Republic, who dedicated his capacity and journalistic training to the investigation, especially related to corrupt acts in public office and the president of the Investigative Commission in the National Assembly. Their convictions revealed some acts that seriously harmed the country and enriched those who committed them. He let it be known that in a few days he would present the evidence of the new robbery. He did not have time, he was deprived of his life in circumstances in which he should have had police protection, which had many failures for which the institution must answer, take responsibility and face, if necessary, a trial to which they should be subjected and its consequences.

They are not the only ones, the investigation must be exhaustive until the material and intellectual authors are discovered. We cannot, must not allow impunity.

Today’s elections are not only made special by this unfortunate fact, but for the first time the constitutional right of the executive was used to dissolve the National Assembly and for six months take over the authority to enact decrees on the extraordinary economic law, the constitutionality of which is being assessed. must establish a Constitutional Court, while the National Electoral Council (CNE) calls for elections to elect a new president and members of the legislature. The political, economic and moral crisis and insecurity in which we live, as a result of criminal violence, is also special.

It is no coincidence that all the candidates in their campaigns offered to fight against organized crime and impunity, as well as corresponding efforts to try to recover the stolen money. They also discussed social programs, dealing with the economic crisis, and environmental protection policy, although they did not clearly say how and with what they would achieve their goals. Neither the candidates nor the citizens must forget that their period will be very short, so we must understand it as a transitional government, whose main task should be to take urgent measures to calm the country again and establish strategies so that Ecuadorians can study, work, produce , innovate, in short, live in peace in an environment of justice and brotherhood.

I have ever heard it said that the right to vote is the best weapon of democracy, it could be, but for that it is necessary that the citizens who use that right know the weapon well and where we want to aim it and that we are ready to admit that we are responsible for the consequences, that would was the complete takeover of our citizenship. Today, more than ever, we must vote, and that conscientiously, because that would be a way of expressing the rejection of violence in all its manifestations and as a means to achieve power. (OR)