Twenty one points in seven days. Or what is the same, three points a day. Or nearly 300,000 voter supporters per day in that crucial week. These are data about the electoral phenomenon that we Ecuadorians just experienced when the polls opened on August 20, when citizens’ decisions were affected by insecurity, lack of jobs, low family well-being and, as a consequence of all this, deep disappointment.

I am referring to the almost vertical escalation experienced by the other finalist of the competition, Daniel Noboa, in that crucial week in which a quarter of those authorized to do so decided by the evening before the vote, and to a great extent. … due to this option that did not clearly appear in the weak traditional research, but to maintain schemes that technology has already greatly surpassed, and some without even making basic combinations of tools, have lost almost total value compared to the final results.

What affects these measurements, as well as a good part of society, is the state of almost complete uncertainty in which our society finds itself. With announcements of states of emergency that are almost immediately followed by defiant shootings and murders, right under the noses of those who announce them; with layoffs everywhere due to the closing of companies that do not want to pay for vaccines, or the shrinking of companies that, due to the same social situation, stopped selling what they thought; with the state’s lack of attention in situations as elementary as potholes.

Then a seemingly small candidate appears, with less noise and slow speech, who exudes a calmness that seemed incompatible with a moment of deep uncertainty, but which connected with the young and the undecided who want solutions, but from the looks of it, they do. . he doesn’t want them with blood and fire, nor by paying with their lives for the “collateral damage” caused by trying to put out the fire with gasoline. And faced with this chosen option, the winner of this first phase, the candidate Luisa González, who carries the flag of correísma, and kept the speeches sown a few years ago that “we have already done it” and “before we were better”, than They served to make impenetrable that 32% of the electorate, which is considered to be their hard vote, and which is challenged for the second time in a row to rise above 50%, in order to win in the end.

I have no doubt that the terrible crime of Fernando Villavicencio moved the Electoral Commission by leaps and bounds. It is impossible that such a heinous act does not leave consequences, which on this occasion, contrary to what one might think, did not only serve to promote the repressive discourse of another candidate who also went far into the past, but also seem to have strongly activated the desire for peace .that they were behind the vote that supported the less radical speech.

If the recent elections have shown something clearly, it is that the voter has changed, that his way of making decisions cannot be measured as before and that the political takeover seems to be well under way. (OR)