Quito, (EFE) to the polls
At 6:53 (11:53 GMT) the National Electoral Council (CNE) declared the voting day inaugurated and the 4,380 polling stations began to open, which will receive voters for more than ten hours, until they close at 5:00 p.m. :00 (22:00 GMT), to give way to the counting of the ballots.
In these elections, 23 provincial prefects and 221 mayors will be elected for the period 2023-2027, as well as the new seven members of the Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control (CPCCS), a body in charge of designating State authorities such as the prosecutor general or controller
At the same time, Ecuadorians will answer “Yes” or “No” to the eight referendum questions, with issues such as allowing extraditions for organized crime, removing the power of the CPCCS to elect authorities, reducing the number of members of the National Assembly and demanding that political movements a minimum number of affiliates.
Other questions include creating a Fiscal Council that appoints prosecutors instead of the Judicial Council, creating a subsystem of protected water areas, and configuring a state compensation system for environmental services.
In the opening act of the elections, both the president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, and the president of the CNE, Diana Atamaint, condemned the murder that occurred the day before of Omar Menéndez, candidate for mayor of the canton (municipality) of Puerto López for the Citizen Revolution movement, related to former President Rafael Correa.
Lasso asks to respect the results
Lasso stressed the importance of the referendum by noting that “this will be a great opportunity, I would say an obligation, to be part of the solutions to the country’s problems and to take another step to strengthen democracy.”
The president also made a call to respect the results and urged the candidates and parties to assume them “with maturity and for love of Ecuador.”
«No one has the right to disrespect democracy or ignore the voice of the people. To ignore the voice of the polls would be to ignore the desire of all of Ecuador. We will be vigilant that the results are respected by all, as it has to be in a true democracy,” Lasso said.
For his part, Atamaint affirmed that Ecuador’s electoral system is ready for Ecuadorians to go to the polls with complete peace of mind and confidence.
Before inaugurating the day, the president of the CNE recalled that there are 5,660 positions in dispute, for which 61,850 candidates have presented themselves, on lists of 238 political organizations.
Increase in female candidates
Atamaint also highlighted the increase in the participation of women in candidacies, which rose from 18% to 24% in the case of prefectures, and from 14% to 31% for mayors, and highlighted that there are 4,747 indigenous candidates, 2,860 Montubios and 1,184 Afro-Ecuadorians.
Likewise, he urged the population to “wait for the results calmly and to obtain information through official channels to avoid misinformation and false news on social networks that undermine the credibility of the process.”
The vote will be observed by international delegations from organizations and institutions such as the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Union of Electoral Organizations (Uniore), the Association of Electoral Magistrates of the Americas (AMEA) and the Andean Parliament.
There will also be observers from the Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America (Ceela) and the World Association of Electoral Bodies (A-WEB), among other organizations.