Guillermo Lasso, the centre-right candidate, has been elected as president of Ecuador in the second round of elections held on April 11. He had contested the 2013 and 2017 elections and had come second. He is a banker and is pro-business in his approach. But he is moderate, sensible and pragmatic and not an extremist like Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil.
Lasso got 53 per cent votes as against his opponent, Andres Arauz from the Left, who got 47 per cent votes. In the first round of elections held in February, Arauz was the leader with 32.72 per cent votes while Lasso was second with 19.74 per cent, marginally beating Yaku Perez, the indigenous and environmental activist who had got 19.39 per cent.
If Arauz had won, Rafael Correa, the former two-term president from 2007 to 2017,would have been back in Ecuadorian politics and restarted his polarising and personal vendetta policies against his opponents. Correa has been indicted for corruption and would face jail on entry into the country. He lives in Belgium, the country of his wife. Correa had done a remarkable job of poverty alleviation, reduction of inequality and socio-economic development. But he was too authoritarian, polarising and confrontational against opposition parties, the media, the US and the West. When his chosen successor, president Lenin Moreno, turned against him, Correa had carried out a vicious campaign against him. So the election was seen as a fight between pro- and anti-Correa forces.
Lasso’s coalition has won 31 seats (of which his own party, CREO, got just 12) in the unicameral Congress of 137 members. The leftist coalition (Union for Hope) of Arauz has got 48 seats. The Pachakutik party of Yaku Perez has got 27 seats, the second-largest group in the Congress. Lasso needs the cooperation of the leftist opposition parties, which have the majority in the Congress, for passing his legislative bills.
President Lasso will face the immediate challenge of dealing with the acute public health and economic crisis caused by COVID-19. He will also have to deal with the huge burden of debt owed to China and the IMF. Income from oil exports, the main foreign exchange earner for the country, has come down due to weak prices and demand.
It is interesting to note that Ecuador's economy remains dollarised since 2000. After the severe economic crisis of 2000, the country abandoned its national currency 'Sucre' to deal with hyper inflation, fall in exchange rate and capital outflow. Even the extreme leftist, anti-US Correa did not try to change the system of using US dollars as the national currency. This means that Ecuador does not print its own bank notes. Panama and El Salvador are the other two Latin American countries that are also dollarised.
Both Arauz and his patron, Correa, have gracefully accepted the verdict despite the small margin (400,000 votes) of the victor. They did not ask for recount or alleged fraud despite the fact that Lasso himself had refused to accept the 2017 election results with accusations of fraud. He had called on his supporters to protest. But Arauz and Correa showed magnanimity by congratulating the winner and promising to play the role of a constructive opposition.
The peaceful holding of the elections, the non-controversial transfer of power, the absence of gun-totting thugs and extremist rhetoric during the campaign and the prompt acceptance of the verdict by losers are a reflection of the strength and maturity of democracy in Ecuador and Latin America, in general.
The peaceful and civilised democratic transfer of power in Ecuador should be a lesson to the so-called global champions of democracy who preach from the top of the Capitol Hill, which saw ugly undemocratic horrors earlier this year.
The Ecuador example becomes more important and timely in the context of the poisonous Bolsonaro who threatens to unleash his armed thugs if he is not re-elected in the elections in 2022.
Although Ecuador is a small country with a population of 18 million, India has substantial trade with it, which was $614 million last year. India exported more ($253 million) to Ecuador than to neighbouring countries such as Cambodia ($188 million) and Kazakhstan ($202 million), which have the same population as that of Ecuador. India has been sourcing crude oil from Ecuador regularly. The Ecuadorian government has shown keen interest in strengthening bilateral relations and had sent a number of high-level delegations to India. Given the growing economic relations, it would be in India’s interest to open an embassy in Quito as soon as possible.
The author is an expert in Latin American affairs.