Alert on potential electoral coup in Ecuador

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The general coordinator of the Progressive International organization, David Adler, alerted on Thursday, March 12th, in his official Twitter to the risk of an electoral coup in Ecuador, as the country prepares for the second round of elections.

“Yaku Pérez has endorsed a call for the Armed Forces to intervene in the polls and prevent the return of Correismo,” warned the leader of the NGO in his tweet.

Adler’s call came to light after defeated presidential candidate Perez called on the Anti-Corruption Commission for the military to intervene at the polls, just one month before the second round of voting in the South American nation.

Perez had previously denounced fraud after failing to win enough votes to enter the second round, according to the official tally made by the National Electoral Council (CNE) in the February 7th elections, where Andrés Arauz, the candidate of the progressive party Unión por la Esperanza, won the most votes, and Guillermo Lasso, candidate of the center-right CREO party, came in second.

Pérez’s recent request to the Anti-Corruption Commission was endorsed by one of its members, Simón Espinoza, who argued in favor of the indigenous representative’s claim to replace the members of the CNE with their alternates.

Likewise, Yaku Pérez demands that the first electoral round be declared void and that a recount of all votes be conducted in the presence of national and international organizations that will fully guarantee the process, as well as the auditing of the CNE’s computer systems.

Pérez and Espinoza’s requests have been rejected by a wide popular sector and experts, who believe that such actions are unconstitutional. In this respect, the Podemos International Secretariat stated: “We strongly reject the calls for an intervention of the Armed Forces in the elections to prevent the return of Correismo in Ecuador.”

A local newspaper also reported an announcement by the European Parliament’s leftist coalition and observers of the Ecuador 2021 elections called for respect for the CNE’s autonomy and for voters’ wishes as expressed last February 7th.

On April 11th, the second round of the general elections will be held in Ecuador.

Source: TeleSur TV