Water flows under the bridge of this painful land full of hope and confusion. Analyzes are booming, comments are booming. Political imagination flies. Assumptions flood the media and heat up the networks. There is no space or time for anything else but elections. It is a form of alienation that, despite everything, we should rationalize.

Here are some notes:

1. It was a different election. They are born from the death of the cross ordered by the president. They were expecting an election event. They shortened the period of Guillermo Lasso. The National Assembly was dissolved, and the news of the violence was soon followed by a political uproar. Never before has the country experienced such urgency and uncertainty. We have never seen so many candidates work with such haste and intensity.

2. Elections characterized by crime. The assassination of Fernando Villavicencio, a brave and frontal man, a different kind of politician, morally delegitimized the event, marked it with a horror that Ecuador had not been moved by for a long time. Christian Zurita took the flag and wrote in capital letters the votes corresponding to Villavicencio. His third place, despite the minimal time he had to campaign, and despite the lack of respectability with which the CNE handled the issue, is a testament to the sensitivity and resentment of many Ecuadorians.

3. Populism through intermediaries. As could be predicted, populism has gained a foothold in the electoral base it has had for a long time. It remained within the bounds of its probability despite the fact that the caudillo acted through intermediaries. The candidate confirmed the obedience of the movement. The candidate repeated what they had already done and projected what they would do from the past and with a distant leader. A sort of proposal made by looking at the country through the rearview mirror.

4. Nobody’s surprise. The young man, with a rational, objective speech devoid of passionate accents, with a surprising knowledge of national problems, won the generational vote; I think many undecideds migrated towards his candidacy. He made it to the second round, and according to everything, the electoral board will change in the coming years, sometimes as president, sometimes as a political actor. Thus, the tired political landscape is refreshed.

5. The silence of the indigenous movement. The calculated silence of the leaders of the indigenous movement is strange, to say the least. The resignation marked the defeat of Yaku Pérez. Will the until recently active and media characters of strikes and coercive actions have different plans?

6. The Assembly will be “the same pod”. As long as the rules and the possibility of electing members of the assembly are not reformed, the panorama of blockades and direct actions will not change. It is already noticeable the presence of the majority and the minority who will question the painful behaviors of the past.

7. Transitional government. We are electing a transitional government that will hardly have time to deal with the problems of violence, government crisis, unemployment and institutional discredit. And in the campaign.

Can we save the Republic? (OR)