Worst Fears Confirmed

ECUADOR - In Brief 13 Jun 2023 by Magdalena Barreiro

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Official candidates will be announced by the Electoral Council next August 6th, and the electoral race will start on August 8th, including a presidential debate that will take place on August 13th. Of the eight announced presidential and vice-presidential candidates, only Daniel Noboa and Veronica Abad have fulfilled all the requirements and are officially accepted. The table below shows all candidates and their political affiliation. A recent poll conducted by CEDATOS reveals that vote intention for the Correistas is 32% when no particular candidate is mentioned. But when asking specifically about Andres Arauz, this intention falls to 18%, and to 2% for Luisa Gonzalez. Otto Sonnenholzner and Fernando Villlavicencio have between 18% to 22% percent depending on the region of the survey, and other candidates have less than 10%. This spectrum is quite similar to the one we had in 2020, as expected. Numbers will change when the campaign starts officially, especially after the debate. In several past monthly reports, we have expressed our concern about the future of dollarization depending on the fate of international reserves in the Central Bank. Our worst fears are being confirmed when the candidates except Sonnenholzner and Villavicencio are already speaking of solving future fiscal problems with this money. Ecuadorians will also vote on a referendum deciding on the future of oil exploitation in the Yasuni—an issue that has been on the table for 10 years. Most probably the outcome will favor a halt of the exploitation in ITT, which currently represents around 11% of total daily crude production. Villavicencio is the candidate with the deepest knowledge of the oil sector ...