In the middle of a strong military and police protection for Ecuadorians They vote on Sunday in a popular consultation to toughen the fight against the violence unleashed since 2021 by organized crime, among other issues, amid an atmosphere of fear among citizens.
Some 13.6 million Ecuadorians, registered to vote, attend the third popular consultation in just over a year, although the first in the government of President Daniel Noboa, a 36-year-old millionaire businessman who assumed power in November for a period of barely 18 months and that he can run for re-election in February of next year.
In that short term he aspires to shake up several norms, while seeking to contain the violence of gangs associated with drug trafficking that have plunged the South American country into insecurity in the last three years.
The polling stations, which dawned with strong police and military guard and to which it was not allowed to enter with bags or backpacks for security reasons, opened with some delay, but relative normality and with long lines of citizens waiting to vote at the polls. The authorities have not allowed traditional street sales around polling stations.
At the opening ceremony, Noboa assured that the result of this consultation would define the course “to face the challenge of fighting violence, organized crime, the fight against corruption and job creation” and highlighted that the power to choose “the future we want” and changing reality was in the hands of Ecuadorians.
Shortly after, the president voted in the small coastal town of Olón, 312 kilometers southwest of the capital, where he has his residence, amid a large security deployment with soldiers wearing bulletproof vests and heavy-caliber weapons. After the vote, he showed the ballot marked 11 times yes and left without giving a statement.
In the week prior to the consultation, the atmosphere of violence prevailing in the country and one of the central axes of the elections, the shooting murder of the mayors of two mining cities in the south of the country was recorded.
“I voted ‘yes’ 11 times because I want this violence to end, this fear, we cannot live like this with fear of leaving our homes,” said Leonor Sandoval, a 39-year-old housewife, who voted in a precinct in the north. capital.
But Jacinto Mena, a 46-year-old primary school teacher, said he rejected all the questions. “The president (Noboa) is convinced that violence will end with violence, that is a mistake that other countries like Colombia and Mexico have made.” He added that what is missing is education, work and money for health.
Voting is scheduled to close at 5:00 p.m. Voting is mandatory for Ecuadorians between 18 and 64 years old and optional for young people between 16 and 17 years old. Ecuador is a country with 17 million inhabitants.
The 11 questions, in which citizens must answer “yes” or “no” on a single ballot, are a new attempt to reform norms that, according to authorities, make the fight against violence difficult. Five involve amendments to the Constitution, and six do not change the Magna Carta, but do change secondary laws.
Among the issues on which Ecuadorians must speak out is whether the military presence should continue in the streets to control internal security, as Noboa ordered at the beginning of the year amid a wave of attacks by criminal gangs and prison riots. . In ordinary situations, the control and surveillance of citizen security is the exclusive responsibility of the police and prisons, of the governing body of the penitentiary system.
It also proposes an increase in penalties for crimes of terrorism and others related to organized crime and drug trafficking, as well as the classification of crimes of possession and carrying of weapons, the use of which is exclusive to law enforcement forces.
Ecuador has been immersed in a climate of insecurity for three years, with a record increase in murders that brought the rate of violent deaths at the end of 2023 to 40 per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest on the continent. Last year there were more than 7,600 crimes. The authorities attribute it to the action of criminal gangs related to drug trafficking.
As part of the strategy to combat violence in that country — which has also seen an increase in kidnappings, assaults, extortions and other crimes — the Noboa government declared Ecuador in internal armed conflict, which allowed the armed forces to carry out joint patrols with the police in the streets and in the country’s prisons, in addition, and which identified about twenty criminal gangs as “terrorists.”
Even with the mobilization of uniformed officers for street checks, murders, kidnappings and extortion have not stopped. On the Easter holiday, at the end of March, there were more than 130 crimes that weekend.
The consultation also involves an examination of approval or disapproval of President Noboa’s management, halfway through his short term and months before new elections in which he has announced his intention to re-elect. The country will have presidential and legislative elections again in February 2025.
The professor of Political Communication at the University of Los Hemisferios, Santiago Cahuasquí, said that if the consultation is approved, the president would relaunch his leadership and would be “a springboard towards the presidential elections.”
He added that in the case of Noboa his narrative “of the internal war has been highly effective.” In just five months in office, the president achieved an approval rating of over 60%.
The new electoral process also comes with the country immersed in the previous week with electricity rationing of at least six hours a day, which forced the government to suspend the working day for two days.
In February 2023, former president Guillermo Lasso called for another consultation also on security, which was rejected by Ecuadorians; while in August, during the first round of the presidential elections, they consulted on oil and mining exploitation in a Yasuní natural reserve and in the Chocó Andino.
In the new call to the polls, there is also a question to allow the extradition of Ecuadorians to other countries, which until now is prohibited by law, and another for the creation of judiciaries specialized in constitutional issues. The authorities have denounced that the constitutional route has been used abusively by criminals to get out of jail, taking their resources to local or provincial judges.
The possibility is also being consulted that weapons, ammunition and other items seized from criminals can be used immediately by the public force and that the confiscated assets become the property of the State.
Despite being a popular consultation focused on security, the government included two questions to allow the validity of fixed-term and hourly labor contracts, until now not recognized in Ecuadorian legislation, and for international arbitrations to be a dispute resolution method. They are prohibited in the Constitution.
Source: Gestion
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