We interview social researcher and Ecuadorian activist, Maria Fernanda Andrade, who’ll deepen the analysis made about this electoral process. teleSUR
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00:00And now we go with our special guest, María Fernanda Andradez, to go deep in what has been the electoral process in Ecuador.
00:09Hello, María Fernanda, can you hear me?
00:13Yes. Hello. Yes, I'm here.
00:18Perfect. Well, Luisa Gonzalez denounced fraud in this process. What can you tell us about it?
00:24Yes. With the social movement, I agree with the two candidates, Gonzalez and Borja's statements.
00:32This is extremely rare.
00:36We think that, according to the latest results, Novoa is winning by more than eight points, which contradicts all the pre-election polls.
00:46Luisa Gonzalez had an overwhelming support in the province of Guayas, one of the hardest hit by crime and insecurity.
00:53And now it turns out that Luisa is winning in Guayas, but with a minimal difference with respect to Boa.
01:01This result is very strange, striking, so to speak.
01:05So we have to know that it is a fraud that many people anticipated in the National Electoral Council, Consejo Nacional Electoral of the province of Guayas.
01:15Yes. Or was there a change of mind among the electorate?
01:21Yeah. And in this context, is it going to happen, the recount of votes as Luisa Gonzalez and her party demanded?
01:29Yes, she's asking for a recount of vote.
01:34We are thinking the social movement, we are supporting her decision.
01:39We think it's the most correct thing to do.
01:44We are analyzing this phenomenon, this social and electoral phenomenon.
01:49If people change their minds, this means there were factors that weren't necessarily strong enough to support candidate González.
01:59If we want to analyze it from a purely electoral perspective, a likely determinative factor would have been the debate between the two candidates in the debate.
02:10We saw Luisa, a strong woman embodying the people's anger, but that transparent way of speaking, nonetheless, didn't please the conservative and non-feminist segment of society that perhaps the undecided opted for non-confrontation.
02:32Yeah. And in the sense, how is this going to affect Ecuador tomorrow, the people, how are they going to react tomorrow?
02:44Yes, we have the worst poverty and unemployment rates.
02:48We're the most violent country in Latin America, and so more than 50 percent of voters in general voted for Novoa, assuming the government has nothing to do with the rights of crime and drug trafficking.
03:00I think half of Ecuadorians don't believe in politics and have hope in the image of a young president with a millionaire family and successful businesses currently based on cocaine exports, according to investigations by international journalists.
03:16We are facing to, I think, I think if Novoa is proclaimed president, we're facing for four years on deepening of the neoliberal model in its most aggressive forms.
03:32Criminal capital is already part of the state apparatus and the logic of life.
03:37And then neoliberalism, which injects social welfare, will open the door, the doors to irregular activity.
03:47Social gaps will surely deepen. Human rights abuses will occur.
03:52There will be more crime, death and increase in mental health problems and the whole drama of forced immigration.
03:59Some of us believe that the deterioration of the state and quality of life of the Ecuadorians is leading us to disintegration as a nation.
04:09I would think of a territory, an abandoned territory.
04:16Yeah, and also, is the state of exception going to continue tomorrow?
04:25I think that is the situation we have to, to be organized, the social movement, we have to be organized to, to see, to testify what is going on with the votes.
04:41We have a state of exception, so it is an obstacle to witness what's happening with the counting of votes.
04:52Yeah, well, thanks, Maria Fernanda, for your knowledge and the information you gave us.
05:00Thank you very much.
05:02Thank you, too.