A kind of agreement in this sense was what four of the eight candidates for the Carondelet Palace attempted on Friday: Yaku Pérez -initiative of the initiative-, Otto Sonnenholzner, Xavier Hervas and Bolívar Armijos, who met in a hotel in Quito and They agreed to agree on a list of security measures.
It also occurs in a context of great violence, with massacres in prisons, clashes between criminal gangs and cities virtually taken over by drug trafficking, which were paralleled by a series of attacks on candidates and assembly members.
The regional elections in February – which coincided with a consultation with eight questions on security promoted by the Executive – were the presentation of violence as a new actor.
In December 2022, Javier Pincay, a candidate for mayor of Portoviejo, was shot eight times. The attack did not prevent him from triumphing at the polls, but it was the announcement of a race that usually repeats patterns: words of solidarity, promises of investigation, commitment from the authorities and little else.
Worse luck had the candidates Julio Farachio (Salinas), Omar Menéndez (Puerto López) and Rider Sánchez (Esmeraldas), and the mayor of Manta, Agustín Intriago, all assassinated by hitmen.
On the other hand, they could not kill Luis Chonillo, who was shot when he had just taken office as community leader in Durán, nor the governor of Los Ríos province, Connie Jiménez, who saved his life from an attack shortly after arriving at his home. .
Consulted by the Primicias site, security analyst Luis Córdova judged that political assassination “has by nature to promote and prevent specific policies, values, citizen perceptions” and looked at the experience in Latin America, which shows that after the declaration of the war against drugs and the militarization of security “began to catapult political crimes.”
“These murders are one more link in the spiral of criminal violence that we have seen in other spaces in Latin America,” Córdova remarked.
The murder of Villavicencio last Wednesday achieved part of its objectives: it forced the suspension of the campaigns. But the Lasso government set out to keep the election date also as a gesture of solidity.
As soon as the proselytizing activity was launched, the Ministry of the Interior and the National Electoral Council (CNE) had offered a special security scheme to each presidential candidate. Villavicencio had not accepted it.
The days remaining until the polls open are a real unknown. After the state of emergency was decreed throughout the territory, Lasso modified the decree just hours later to annul the limitation of the right to freedom of assembly, which some leaders considered an obstacle to the campaigns, although no one can predict that the shock caused by the Villavicencio’s crime allows massive acts.
“It is important to understand that the dynamics of this campaign is one in which the candidates, one week from this period, are not going to move much. They are taking many precautions. Only Luisa González (the candidate of Revolución Ciudadana) remains active “reviewed Torres.
The analyst noticed two pieces of information when evaluating the proposals of the applicants in the area: “On the one hand, all of them have security plans, but most do not have depth, nor a sense of how they will do it, nor data on the origin of the resources. That is not enough to make a transversal outline of a policy that aims to gradually deactivate the main sources of this conflict unleashed by countless factors.”
And, on the other, Torres urged us to think that “these are lightning elections”, called with very short deadlines due to President Lasso’s decision to decree the “cross death”, which implied the dissolution of the Legislative and the call for new elections to elect whoever completes their term, until May 2025.
“And that accelerated everything. Most of the candidates, in fact, were not prepared and also had to improvise in their government plans,” said the editor of Código Vidrio.
Statistics for 2022 show 25 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in the country, but 2023 could end worse, because only in the first half of the year 74.7% more homicides were committed than in the first six months of last year.
On whether any force can capitalize on what happened, Torres speculated that “the one that knows how to act in the territory, move with a security prepared for the moment, that has logistical chances, expertise and equipment” can add.
“And only the Citizen Revolution has that advantage,” he completed, regarding the movement of former president Rafael Correa.
Meanwhile, the media repeats the names of the gangs that fight over the cities and even the prison blocks: Los Lobos, Los Choneros, Los Lagartos and Los Tiguerones appear as the main ones, but it is estimated that there are around 20, mostly linked to foreign cartels. In April, the government declared them “terrorist” organizations.
Next week’s elections already had some peculiarities: it is the first time that the “cross death” has been used, whoever wins will only govern 18 months and neither the ruling party nor the third nor the fourth force of the 2021 elections are presented.
Source: Ambito
