TeleSUR special envoy Jorge Gestoso foreshadows what we can expect of this electoral exercise about to happen in Ecuador on Sunday 13th. teleSUR
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00:00In this sense, we go live with our colleague Jorge Gestoso for more information about these upcoming presidential elections in Ecuador. Hello, Jorge.
00:23What else can you tell us about these upcoming presidential elections in Ecuador?
00:30We are here less than 48 hours away from the runoff for the beginning of the second round of the elections in Ecuador, and there are fewer speculations among possible which polls are the more precise.
00:53There are some of them that give the majority of the votes to the candidate Luisa Gonzalez, with a comfortable margin between at least 5%, and other ones believe that the margin is narrower.
01:13Nobody really knows what's going on, but there are some votes from the undecided.
01:21Also, the votes are blank and refused the vote.
01:26And also, what is going to be the behavior of the Ecuadorians living overseas that are going to start to vote in different parts of the world, like Australia, very soon because of the time difference.
01:39There are many of them who live in the United States and also in Spain that could play a role if, at the moment of counting the votes, the margins are very narrow.
01:52And here, the speculation starts to be what is going to happen if the margin of victory is very narrow, if the one who loses is going to accept the results or is going to question the results.
02:09If some of them could eventually claim fraud.
02:14That is something that we really hear pretty often here in Ecuador.
02:19So, there are anyway very much enthusiasm and the people in the streets.
02:26The city is absolutely, we're talking about Quito here, the capital, it's very quiet, very organized.
02:33We are leaving the first day of what they call the electoral silence because yesterday, Thursday at midnight, the electoral campaign finished with the electoral acts.
02:47Both candidates in the city that is the most populated, we're talking about Guayaquil, both of them,
02:55and then we're talking about Guisa Gonzalez and Daniel Novoa had their final stages over there.
03:01There's also some questions that, for example, we have learned that early this morning, the custody, the security of the candidate,
03:14Guisa Gonzalez, from the armed forces have been re-changed, meaning that the team that she was having
03:23throughout all these days, at the very last day, at the very last moment, if you want, in the last 48 hours,
03:30has been changed for a new crew.
03:33And she is absolutely denouncing that because she says that she has received many, many threats, life threats,
03:43threats, and even in her family, and the fact that changing their security, their lifeguards, and the people who she
03:53really feels comfortable with, was sending a very, very, very, very discomfortable message.
04:00And she definitely blamed President Daniel Novoa for that action, being said that it's absolutely a way to act,
04:11trying to project himself that he is the one who decides what and when is going on in Ecuador.
04:19The denunciation of the lack of respect of institutions and the lack of respect of the rule of law, for example,
04:28he was not supposed to be a candidate and the president at the same time, and he didn't respect that.
04:35The same thing with the naming of the candidate of the vice president that he, by decree, replaced in an act
04:48that is absolutely, totally partial.
04:51So that had created a reputation that here we are having signs of an authoritarian leader,
05:00and for many, many people, they believe that prolonging him in four more years could create even a much more conflict situation,
05:12especially because the insecurity is very, very high, unemployment very, very high, and also environmental issues.
05:21And I can always be the largest in the history of Ecuador that happened a few days ago.
05:27It's still out of his radar. He didn't show up in the province of Esmeralda and that.
05:33So, all that is taking place, and in the case of Luisa Gonzalez, she is very hopeful that this time the blame game
05:43of blaming everything possible thing that goes wrong in Ecuador is blamed to the Correismo,
05:50definitely is not going to work this time. We get back to you now.
05:55Thank you, Jorge, for the information. We'll stay tuned with you for more.