Correistas are back

ECUADOR - In Brief 06 Feb 2023 by Magdalena Barreiro

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Elections for local authorities – city mayors and provincial dignities - held yesterday showed a strong comeback from the Correistas who won Quito, the province of Pichincha, Guayaquil and the Province of Guayas, among other smaller cities. Pavel Munoz, the new mayor of Quito, will exercise his administration in a city that has suffered from misrule for the last 8 years, with mayors who have gone from being plainly inept to openly corrupt. However, the Correistas have been co-responsible for this situation as they had a majority in the City Council. On the other hand, Guayaquil, which has prospered under the administration of Social Christians since 1992, will have a different party ruling its destiny for the next four years. Both results are not totally surprising. Elections in Quito are the consequence of having 17 candidates, many of whom did not reach 3% of votes. Thus, Munoz won with less than 25% of voters’ support - a similar result as in the last election, while in Guayaquil the strength of the Correistas (who won with close to 40% of the votes) was already evident in the most recent presidential elections of May 2021. Social Christians maintained their authorities in Sanborondon, a wealthy suburb of Guayaquil. We will follow public statements and information to have a better idea of how this defeat of the Social Christians in Guayas will affect their alliance with Correistas in the Assembly. To add sticks to stones, the referendum proposed by the government received a resounding NO on each one of the eight questions. This is another non-surprising result given the low popularity of Guillermo Lasso and the historical Ecuadorian evidence that referendums only va...