Carlos Sanchez Berzain Abogado | Estadista | Político | Politólogo
March 28th, 2017
Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The recent first round of balloting in the presidential election in Ecuador showed that when the people defend their rights the counterfeiters of their will loose and “fraud is not enough.” Preparations for (sic) the second round of balloting now show manipulation, duress, deception, falsehood, perquisites, cover up, and desperation in the ruling party’s campaign directed by Rafael Correa in his pursuit of impunity. Only electoral fraud can make it possible for Lenin Moreno & Jorge Glas to appear as winners of the second round because only fraud can change the repudiation shown by 60.64% of Ecuadoreans of a regime that has placed Ecuador in the same path as Cuba and Venezuela.
In the first round this past 19th of February the percentage of votes obtained by candidates were; Moreno & Glas 39.36%, Guillermo Lasso 28,09%, Cynthia Viteri 16,32%, Paco Moncayo el 6,71%, Abdalá Bucaram 4,82%, Iván Espinel 3,18%, Patricio Zuquilanda 0,77%, and Washington Pesantes 0,75%. The added total shows that 60.64% of Ecuadoreans voted against Moreno & Glas, this is the percentage of their rejection. If we apply only a slim margin of 5% of fraudulent votes to the voting percentage obtained by the ruling party, the Ecuadorean people’s repudiation of the Castro-Chavez acolyte candidates could easily reach two thirds of the voters.
Moreno & Glas DID NOT win the first round of balloting with 39.36%, they lost it by a 60.64% margin. The real results are that “60.64% OF THE ECUADOREAN PEOPLE REJECTED AND DEFEATED THE RULING PARTY’S CANDIDATES” even with the fraud perpetrated to benefit them (which incredibly has not been more publicized by the opposition). Correa and his candidates lost the election and the fraud they perpetrated was not nearly enough to reach the magical 40% that his own regime -in their rules for fraud and favoritism- had imposed as the minimum percentage to win. The 21st Century Socialism’s (SSXXI) candidates reached the top of their support and fraud and could not come out as winners as was previously anticipated, ordained, and announced by Rafael Correa. All the electoral simulation paraphernalia to sustain the non-democratic regime in power came down crumbling and that we can definitely call defeat by repudiation.
The ruling party’s electoral proposal contrasted with the rest of the candidates, no one expressed their support to the dictatorial socialist project that has taken Ecuador to now have; politically persecuted, imprisoned, and exiled citizens, an economic crisis, mega corruption, cover ups, and the most despicable “gag law”. For the upcoming 2nd round, none of the candidates support Moreno & Glas, much to the contrary they have shown their support to Guillermo Lasso. All electoral proposals from the candidates; Lasso, Viteri, Moncayo, Bucaram, Espinel, Zuquilanda, and Pesantes are diverse proposals against the government and this is why Ecuadoreans voted for the different candidates but against Correa-Moreno-Glas.
In this scenario, “to win the second round” Correa’s strategy as Campaign Manager and owner of Moreno & Glas is; to present his candidates in huge campaign rallies to simulate an increase in electoral constituency support that politically and statistically cannot happen as there is no how or nowhere to obtain more support, to use and abuse the government owned media and resources showing figures and information that reinforce the creation of a winning image to prepare the people for things to come, an intense direct and indirect dirty campaign against Lasso & Paez to cover-up its own corruption, adjust the degree of fraud so that this time it will be enough to win.
Electoral fraud is already underway and the appointment of Ecuador’s Electoral National Council’s (CNE in Spanish) President is a first sign of coercion as an instrument of fraud. The firing of the Army’s Chief of Staff, General Castro, is also proof of fraud in order to manipulate the control of the ballot boxes and votes that they could not do enough of in the first round. The persecution of the former Director of the Venezuelan Electoral Power, Ana Mercedes Diaz who went to Ecuador as an observer for the first round and who was personally rejected by Rafael Correa and who denounced that in Ecuador’s elections a replica of Venezuela’s fraud techniques was used through cybernetic fraud and the alteration of data in the computation of the ballots and who ended up as a refugee in the U.S. Embassy in Ecuador.
The expulsion of Mrs. Lilian Tintori, wife of Venezuelan political prisoner Leopoldo Lopez, by order of Rafael Correa and justified by candidate Lenin Moreno, is also an act of fraud. The description of the abuse alone just shows the absolute control of the State -President included- to favor the ruling party’s candidates and the dictatorial nature of the regime. Correa fears that Ecuadoreans will see their immediate future in the image of a broken down and famine that we see in today’s Venezuela. Before, the support of Chavez, Castro, Maduro, Morales, and Ortega in Correa’s campaigns were vital, but nowadays the crises, corruption, narcotics trafficking, and the ever-increasing lack of popular support of the 21st Century Socialism’s dictators, their only mention is a detractor and they cannot allow Lilian Tintori to remind the people through her testimony.
The cover-up of corruption is a crime in Ecuador and anywhere in the world, but Rafael Correa personally hides and publicly protects through governmental acts the identity of the members of the government (or perhaps his own name/and or of his candidates) that received $33.5 Million Dollars in bribes from Odebrecht, and he does so for electoral purposes. This, aside from being a common crime of criminal benefits stemming from a governmental position, is further proof of those criminal acts called electoral fraud, to change and turn-over the repudiation already expressed by more than 60% of Ecuadoreans against the candidates Moreno & Glas.