Carlos Sanchez Berzain Abogado | Estadista | Político | Politólogo
Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
April 25, 2025
(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The unquestionable victory of Daniel Noboa in Ecuador’s presidential elections is the triumph of freedom over organized crime that operates as a political actor, but it is also a mandate to conclude the transition towards democracy that president Lenin Moreno started. The over ten years of power of Rafael Correa were a dictatorship of 21st Century Socialism and although Ecuador is the only nation of the Americas that was able to break away from such a disgraceful situation, it now becomes urgent to end the dictatorship’s laws and no longer continue granting impunity.
Rafael Correa was installed and sustained by Hugo Chavez who led the Bolivarian populism, creating and promoting candidates with Venezuela’s moneys, candidates whose chances of getting elected were aided with operations by Cuba’s dictatorship and the Forum of Sao Paulo, today known as 21st Century Socialism, or Castrochavism.
When Correa ascended to the presidency of Ecuador, he was preceded by Evo Morales who got to power in Bolivia in 2006 and by Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, one week before. All three of them had a uniform, antiimperialist agenda that included; the construction of narco-States and destruction of democracy. Political persecutions with the manipulation of prosecutors and judges began, arbitrary detentions, seizures, assassinations -both of reputations as well as physical- started, exile, and State-terrorism was an every-day occurrence that continues to this day in Bolivia and Nicaragua and that stopped in Ecuador by its return to democracy led by president Moreno.
Suffice it, to prove that Correa’s tenure was a dictatorship, is to remember the imprisonment of Galo Lara, Carolina Llanos, the death of General Jorge Gabela, the kidnapping of Fernando Balda, the proceedings against the 10 from Luluncoto or the 259 from Saraguro, the sentencing against Endara for applauding, the 12 students from Colegio Central Tecnico. Other corroborating events proving the existence of dictatorship were the confiscation of the El Universo Daily, of TC and TV and Gama-Vision, the “Mandate 13,” persecutions against Fernando Villavicencio, Juan Carlos Calderon, Janeth Inostroza, caricature painter Bonil, Emilio Palacio and hundreds of cases more.
The first voice implicating Correa as a dictator was heard from former president Osvaldo Hurtado in his book “Dictatorships of 21st Century, The Ecuadorean Case” telling us that “the political model by which -under the direction of a civilian chieftain elected by the peoples- democracies are turned into plebiscitary (vote-catching) dictatorships through the malicious use of its institutions was not an invention of Hugo Chavez, this had been conceived and instituted decades before by autocrats who governed Italy and Germany” (Mussolini and Hitler).
The dictatorship of Correa did what all Castrochavism regimes do, namely; expel the U.S. Ambassador, expel the U.S. DEA, protect narcotics’ trafficking, and consolidate a narco-State. Correa aggravated the situation further by closing Manta Air Base, an international center in the fight against narcotics’ trafficking, protected the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC in Spanish) in Ecuadorean territory, something that caused the bombing and incursion of Colombian troops in the area of Angostura where AKA Raul Reyes died.
In 2017, in a period shy of two months of his government, Lenin Moreno drifted away from Correa’s policies and started the restitution of the “essential components of democracy.” ‘Moreno’s decision to create an anti-corruption commission to investigate the payment of bribes by the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht” was the spark “because an executive of said company accused Jorge Glas to have received $12 Million Euros in bribes.” Several cases of corruption by Correa and his inner circle were documentarily denounced by Fernando Villavicencio and one such case took Rafael Correa, Jorge Glas, and others to be formally “declared guilty and charged for corruption and be sentenced to 8 years in jail in the Case known as Bribes 2012-2016.”
The path of return to democracy, led by Lenin Moreno, took Ecuador to the 2021 elections in which opposition member Guillermo Lazo was elected -in a second round of voting- by defeating Correa’s candidate. In May of 2023, pressured by Correism’s politics, Lazo activated the “crossed death” by decreeing the dissolution of Ecuador’s National Assembly and asked for a call to elections that took place on 20 August and 15 October of 2023.
During this electoral process Fernando Villavicencio, who had been the greatest accuser against Correa and his dictatorship and whose ascent to the presidency was dangerous and a threat against Correa and 21st Century Socialism, was assassinated. Due to Villavicencio’s demise, the elections were vied between Correa’s candidate Luisa Gonzales and Daniel Noboa. After a second round of voting Noboa was declared the winner to complete Lazo’s unserved period and took Ecuador to the recent elections of 2025 that Noboa has just won against Gonzales.
Ecuadorean peoples have voted for their freedom, mandating Noboa the obligation to end the transition towards democracy, which represents, as a minimum; 1. Legal changes, 2. The execution of court-mandated apprehension of Correa and his accomplices, 3. The identification and prosecution of the master minds of Villavicencio’s assassination, 4. The separation from politics of all organized crime operators.
*Lawyer & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy
Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas
Published in Spanish by infobae.com Monday April 21, 2025