We now go live to our colleague Jorge Gestoso who brings us updates on what we can expect from the presidential runoff in Ecuador.
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00:00Let's now go live again to Ecuador with a special envoy, Jorge Estoso, to have all the latest details as we are very close for the opening for this election that is going to be held on Sunday in Ecuador.
00:13Hello, Jorge Estoso. Welcome again to From the South. What can you tell us?
00:16Luis Alberto, at this very hour here in Quito we are under state of emergency as part of the seven provinces that President Daniel Lagoa has declared in a decree under precisely state of emergency and the reasoning that he argues is given the violence going on in the country.
00:45The violence, as you mentioned, was one of the promises that he did when he faked his electoral campaign in the previous year saying that he was going to put down the violence and the statistics are really, really worrisome.
01:05And we're talking about 27 killings a day since the last three months of this year, and that is about double the figure compared to the same period of 2024.
01:20Definitely, there is a coincidence that this decree is issued by President Daniel Lagoa just on the eve of a razor-thin election, too close to call election for many analysts.
01:39Some of them say that the margin of victory of Luis González is not a razor thing at all, it's comfortable, but remains to be seen.
01:50But that is coincidence has remained a lot of suspicious. Luis Alberto.
01:55So, talking about this state of exemption, has there been any kind of reaction from other political groups or social movements in the country?
02:06What are their concerns and what have they said, if they have said anything regarding this latest policy?
02:11The largest indigenous organization in the country, a very important and vital part of the Ecuador, called CONAIE, that is a confederation of the indigenous nationalities of Ecuador, has issued a communique.
02:31And I want to read to you, quoting what part of the communique says, it says,
02:38Novoa declared a supposed, supposed internal commotion.
02:46And it says, this is a strategy that seriously undermines democracy.
02:52And we, we, meaning the CONAIE, denounced that this anti-democratic maneuver is inconceivable and despicable.
03:04So, it has been very clear that according to this very large organization, this is part of a political strategy.
03:13According to CONAIE, it doesn't exist at all, the reason why he has declared that, according to CONAIE, there is not just thing as internal commotion.
03:26And we have seen it, for example, here in Quito, as I was mentioning to you, we are in the state of emergency.
03:33Nothing different from a regular day has been taking place.
03:37But definitely, he is using all the strategies to, according to influence, these results of the election.
03:47One thing that is interesting to mention is that in many of these seven provinces that he has declared the state of emergency,
03:58the electorate is favorable for Luisa Gonzalez.
04:03And therefore, he is playing, or at least allegedly playing, the role that in doing so, he could handicap the probabilities that Luisa Gonzalez has a better performance.
04:19So, they speculate with that, and that is the reaction of Luisa Alberto at this point.
04:24Thank you, Hostoso, for the latest information.
04:31I'm going to stay tuned on anything that's happening tomorrow.
04:33I'm going to be following up very closely this presidential runoff in Ecuador tomorrow.
04:36We'll see you tomorrow hearing from the south.
04:39We'll see you tomorrow.