Ecuador: indigenous people start the march to Quito for alleged electoral fraud against Yaku Pérez

First modification: 02/18/2021 – 04:29

The definition of second place in the first round of the presidential elections in Ecuador remains uncertain and the warnings of the indigenous movements of Ecuador are materialized.

This Wednesday the indigenous communities began a march from the city of Loja, in the south of the country, which plans to reach Quito, to demand a recount of votes requested by the candidate they support, Yaku Pérez.

The mobilization, which will travel more than 6,000 kilometers and will have a stop in the town of Latacunga, plans to reach its destination next Tuesday to protest in front of the facilities of the National Electoral Council (CNE).

“The walk will include several provinces, from the center of the country it will reach the CNE, we estimate that in six or seven days,” said the coordinator, Marlon Santi.

According to the preliminary results, the disputed second place is for former banker Guillermo Lasso, with 19.74% of the votes, so that in third position and out of the competition would have been Pérez, with a slight difference, when obtaining 19 , 38% of the votes.

Whoever is finally confirmed will be the one who faces the economist Andrés Arauz, a candidate backed by former socialist president Rafael Correa, who despite having obtained first place, the number of votes in his favor, of 32.7%, was not enough to declare himself as the absolute winner in the first round.

Pérez now asks for suspension of the scrutiny and total recount of the votes

Initially, Lasso and Pérez had reached an agreement to recount the votes, which proposed a new recount of 100% of the tally sheets in the province of Guayas, the largest in the country, and 50% in another 16 of the 24 provinces of the country. country.

But later, Lasso accused Pérez of trying to impose conditions on the process and said that the new ballot count should be carried out as long as all the candidates who ran for the election agreed, something that complicates the environmentalist’s request.

Pérez made the formal request for his proposal before the National Electoral Council of Ecuador and although it submitted it for consideration, he did not give any definitive answer.

The count was put on hold after the five-member body failed to reach a significant majority in favor of Pérez’s request. In a vote on Tuesday night, there were two people in favor, one against, one abstention and one absent.

“This plenary session of the National Electoral Council, unfortunately, does not respond to the request, nor does it approve or deny the report presented in the technical area” on the recount request, said the head of the Council, Diana Atamaint.

This pronouncement further raised the allegations of alleged irregularities by supporters of the 51-year-old environmental lawyer. Yaku Pérez now requests the suspension of the vote count given so far by the CNE and demands a recount of the votes.

“Now we ask for the suspension and with it the recount vote by vote,” he said after submitting his new petition to the Council headquarters in the Ecuadorian capital.

“Neither dream that we are going to support Lasso’s organized crime, nor dream that to prevent (Rafael) Correa from coming to Ecuador we have to support the bank holiday and the corruption of Mr. Guillermo Lasso (…) we are the only ones who can win, ”he challenged.

Pérez alleges that there was a fraud to keep him out of the second round after Lasso narrowly moved him from second to third place in the middle of the count and assures that the mobilizations will continue until the authorities listen to his requests.

With AFP and EFE