There is a lot to choose from if one wants to look for the causes of the uncertainty surrounding the results of the elections that we will have in two weeks. Unknown candidates, predominance of lightness with the sacrifice of clear proposals and meaningful questions (for which social networks are ideal), improvised candidates, in short, countless factors. All this makes for an empty campaign that offers no incentives to voters, much less clear hints about the goals the finalists are striving for. These and all the causes that can be enumerated are summed up in one, the absence of political parties. It is a disease of democracy that affects several countries, and which has been occurring in Ecuador since the end of the last century.

Between 1998 and 2002, the four parties that have dominated since the beginning of the democratic era lost more than twenty percentage points, and from last year to 2006 they lost an additional thirty points. Those who appeared in the meantime had no better luck and were more ephemeral than their predecessors. Those were the times when everyone was euphorically asked to leave. And, indeed, they went. But the stage did not remain empty because it was completely occupied by one character who tirelessly repeated that he was no longer himself, that he was the people. As it is, there was no reason to worry, the people were incarnated and did not need to elect representatives. So we lived for ten years, in which those who did not want to be part of the herd did nothing to build organizations based on clear principles and solid programs. Blind to reality, the most deluded continued to preach the purity of social movements and the fiction of civil society. The most practical ones bet on a personal showdown, on the search for an alternative leader. Both have allowed politics to remain trapped in Correismo-antiCorreismo, without substance, message or government proposals.

We are waiting for the candidate’s personal performance, their greater or lesser self-confidence…

The dominant expectations on Friday – the day this column was written – from the debate of the presidential candidates are symptoms that show that this disease is still present more strongly than in the previous 25 years. We await the candidates’ personal performance, their more or less poise, the formal or informal attire they choose, the speed with which they answer each question, in short, their ability to win a televised contest on basic topics. For many years we are used to privileging these aspects without ever thinking of trying to look at the background and explore the structures that support them or, rather, that should support them. We know that there are none, that on the one hand the structure is the will of the leader, and on the other the chance of the candidate of the moment.

In the previous elections, there were a few glimmers of hope with the revival of Pachakutik and the Democratic Left, but in both cases it became obvious that they had mortgaged all their efforts to the names of the candidates. With their separation, that possibility ended. In the current one, there was no attempt and memoranda came out that want to be called parties and they came out to look for candidates and candidates came out to look for memoranda. That’s what democracy remains when everyone leaves. (OR)