Indigenous candidate charges fraud to exclude him from Ecuador’s second round vote

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Monday, February 8th, Indigenous candidate Yaku Pérez, disputing with banker Guilherme Lasso a place on the second round of presidential elections in Ecuador, denounced an alleged fraud attempt to exclude him from the race.

With 98.70% of the votes counted, according to the National Electoral Council (CNE), economist Andrés Arauz, political heir to former socialist President Rafael Correa (2007-2017), emerges as the leader after the first round, held on Sunday, February 7th, with 32.12% of votes.

Next come Pérez, with 19.96%, and Lasso, with 19.57%. “He is terrified that we will go to the second round,” he accused, referring to Correa. According to Pérez, “a fraud is being conspired (…) to prevent us from reaching the second round”.

With no evidence presented, he says that 15 percentage points of his votes have been transferred to other candidates – although no official has confirmed the irregularities pointed out by the candidate so far.

The candidate proposed opening the polls in the three provinces with the largest electorate, including Pichincha, whose capital is Quito. Pérez and his party colleagues began a vigil on Sunday night outside a Quito hotel where election officials were counting votes, pledging to prevent electoral fraud.

At a celebration rally in his hometown of Guayaquil, Lasso said a complete review of polling statements would show he would reach the second round. Under Ecuadorian law, any candidate may request manual recounts.

There is concern over the counting of votes in the country, because in the last presidential election there was a “blackout,” when the counting system went down and raised doubts as to whether all votes had been tallied.

CNE President Diana Atamaint said that “each candidate has the right to exhaust all legal instances to contest the results”. “If we have to open the ballot boxes, we will,” she said.

The CNE said it is reviewing 13.96% of the electoral records for inconsistencies, which has delayed the release of the final election results. Therefore, waiting for a vote by vote count will be expected. Atamaint added that the official results will be released once she has analyzed “100% of the polling records”.

The Organization of American States (OAS) observer mission, which is monitoring the poll, asked for calm until the final release of the results, given that the count shows a “narrow margin between second and third place candidates”.

Source: Noticias ao Minuto