Ecuadorians took to the polls to vote on a referendum that proposed to limit public officials to two terms limits. The proposal was a not-so-subtle effort to ban former President Rafael Correa from ever running for office again.
Ecuador still has a long way to go to recover from a polarizing ten years under populist Rafael Correa, but the first eight months of Lenín Moreno’s presidency have re-confirmed the importance of succession and regularly held elections.
President Moreno may not be a newfound ally for the U.S., but he is a reminder that today the greatest challenges to U.S. interests in the region aren’t ideological but criminality, poor governance and populism.
The controversies swirling around the victory of Lenin Moreno’s narrow victory demonstrate why it’s important to have credible professional electoral observers.
Soon Rafael Correa will be an ex-president. Will he go calmly into presidential retirement or noisily wait in the wings for a future return?
After a series of electoral setbacks for leftist candidates and incumbent coalitions over the past two years, Lenín Moreno, the candidate of the ruling left-wing Alianza País coalition will get the largest share of the vote.
Though a member of the Hugo Chavez’s -inspired ALBA bloc, Ecuador has a curious record in its international commitment to democratic norms and human rights.
In recent elections across the world, incumbent candidates have faced an uphill battle. Ecuadoreans might buck the trend in the upcoming election of February 19. Yet, if there are lessons to be learned from recent upsets, the last weeks of a campaign is when surprises begin to pop up.
Morales and Correa remain in power and maintain strong popular support, but their miscalculations have created the best chances yet of opening space for political competition in both countries. It presents an opportunity for political oppositions to rise to the occasion with policy proposals that reestablish checks and balances and strengthen independent institutions. Although the tide is turning against populist authoritarian regimes in Latin America, much remains to be done to restore democratic governance.
Three years ago, Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia and Venezuela led a failed effort to gut the inter-American system of human rights by limiting the functions and independence of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In June, two of those governments’ candidates—Ecuador and Argentina—were elected to the Inter-American Court on Human Rights. Should we be worried?
