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Ecuador

On Contact: Corporate Tyranny And Steven Donziger

May 30, 2021 Chris Hedges, RT. , , ,
On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to Steven Donziger, the human rights environmental justice attorney, about the grim reality when we confront the real centers of power. Donziger has been fighting polluting American oil companies for nearly three decades on behalf of indigenous communities and peasant farmers in Ecuador, and has been under house arrest in Manhattan for nearly two years. He went on trial in federal court in New York two weeks ago on contempt of court charges, which could see him jailed for six months, for appealing the demand to hand over his computer, cellphone, and other electronic devices to the court, a violation, he argues, of attorney-client privilege. No attorney without a criminal record in federal court has ever before been detained pretrial for a misdemeanor offense.

US Role Behind The Defeat Of Ecuador’s Leftist Presidential Candidate

April 28, 2021 Roger Harris, Orinoco Tribune. , , ,
The US role in the defeat of leftist Andrés Arauz in Ecuador’s presidential contest on April 11 was not overt because it did not need to be, according to a high-ranking Latin American diplomat. We met with the diplomat and others on an official election observation delegation with CODEPINK. Names of some sources remain anonymous due to a hostile political environment towards progressives.  This setback for the Citizens Revolution movement, founded by Rafael Correa, will have profound implications for Ecuador and beyond, fortifying the US-allied reactionary bloc in Latin America.  Former President Correa left office with a 60% approval rating. He had been twice elected president on the first round; unprecedented for Ecuador, which had a turnover of seven presidents in the previous decade.

How The United States Stole Democracy In Ecuador

April 27, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
The second and final round of the presidential election took place in Ecuador on April 11. Clearing the FOG speaks with Leonardo Flores, the Latin American campaign coordinator for CODEPINK who served as an official election observer, about that election and the many ways the United States and the corporate media worked to prevent the election of the popular leftist candidate, Andres Arauz. The election of a banker, Guillermo Lasso, means the neoliberal assault on the people will continue. Flores speaks about the resistance in Ecuador and the general state of the Pink Tide in South America.

The Dirty Campaign Underlying Ecuador’s ‘Free And Fair’ Election

April 20, 2021 Medea Benjamin and Leonardo Flores, Popular Resistance. , , ,
Ecuador’s April 11 election that led to a 5-point victory by conservative banker Guillermo Lasso over progressive candidate Andrés Arauz was not what it appeared to be. On the surface, it was a surprisingly clean and professional election, as our CODEPINK official observer delegation witnessed. But a fraud-free process for casting and counting ballots does not mean that the election was free and fair. Behind the scenes was a monumentally unequal playing field and dirty campaign designed to quash an Arauz win.  For starters, Arauz—a 36-year-old follower of the political leanings of former president Rafael Correa and his Citizens Revolution—barely even got on the ballot. The political party he tried to run under was banned by the National Electoral Council (CNE).

Ecuador’s Election Is A Test Of Our Solidarity

April 8, 2021 David Adler, ROAR Magazine. , , ,
On 11 April, the people of Ecuador will cast their final vote to elect the country’s next president. But as we approach the second round of Ecuador’s presidential election, the attacks on its electoral process are escalating rapidly. In the last month alone, we have seen calls for a military coup published in Ecuador’s most popular newspapers, efforts to disqualify candidates with false accusations of fraud, and an attempt to confiscate its voting databases for an illegal ‘audit’ of the first-round votes. These tactics are designed not only to challenge the democratic institutions of Ecuador, but also for export to authoritarian actors around the world.

Ecuador’s Socialists Set To Defeat Neo-liberalism

April 4, 2021 Lee Brown, Labour Outlook. , , ,
A young left-wing economist, Andres Aruaz, is favourite to win Ecuador’s presidential election later this month, in what would be the latest victory for progressives in Latin America after elections in Mexico, Argentina and Bolivia in recent years.  But with a left victory likely, there are growing concerns that elites in Ecuador and abroad are conspiring to sabotage the electoral process. This has become an all too common response of the Latin American right-wing to progressive victories.  In Bolivia, when socialist Evo Morales was elected in 2019, a military coup ousted him after exploiting trumped-up charges of fraud that were later found to be wholly false. 

Tens Of Millions In Florida Properties Linked To Ecuadorian Candidate

April 1, 2021 Jake Johnston, CEPR. , , ,
In March 2017, ahead of Ecuador’s second-round presidential election, CEPR reported that Florida-based shell companies linked to then-candidate Guillermo Lasso owned 144 properties in Broward and Miami-Dade counties valued at over $30 million. In that election, voters approved a referendum barring politicians and civil servants from holding assets in tax havens and giving them one year to divest or transfer their holdings. Though Florida is not included among the list of tax havens, it is considered a “low tax jurisdiction,” which authorities will handle on a case-by-case basis. Four years later, Ecuador is again headed to a second-round presidential vote, with Lasso on the ballot. While additional layers of anonymity have been introduced in order to further hide...

Ecuador’s Pseudo-Left Candidate Yaku Pérez Echoes Call For Military Takeover

March 12, 2021 Ben Norton, The Grayzone. , , ,
Ecuador’s third-place presidential candidate, Yaku Pérez Guartambel, has called for direct military intervention in his country’s political system, requesting a purge of electoral authorities and a nullification of the results of the February 7 election that he lost. Pérez has also demanded that Ecuador’s corrupt and undemocratic Lenín Moreno government immediately issue a legal judgment against the socialist-oriented candidate Andrés Arauz, who won the first round of the presidential election in a landslide, in an effort to disqualify him based on a debunked conspiracy alleging he received money from Colombian socialist guerrillas in the ELN. The Grayzone has documented how the Pachakutik party of Pérez has received support from the US government, and how the candidate has misleadingly portrayed himself as a progressive environmentalist while pushing for right-wing policies and US-backed coups targeting democratically elected left-wing governments across Latin America.

Coup-Supporting Academics Spread Lies To Censor The Grayzone

March 3, 2021 Ben Norton, The Grayzone. , , ,
A collection of coup-supporting academics are lobbying to censor The Grayzone’s factual journalism exposing Ecuador’s presidential candidate Yaku Pérez. Pérez is a self-declared environmentalist from a US government-backed party who has supported numerous right-wing coups in Latin America, advanced xenophobic conspiracies, and demonized poor people in his country. The academics have published a deceptive and distortion-laden open letter that egregiously misrepresents my factual reporting and absurdly smears me as “racist and misogynist,” based on absurd insinuations and outright falsehoods. Besides deploying a litany of baseless ad hominem smears, the academics resorted to a wild array of demonstrably false claims that were contradicted by the very same article they are seeking to censor.

Ecuador’s Elections Are Being Undermined By Foreign And Domestic Interference

February 27, 2021 Mohamed Elmaazi, Sputnik News. , , ,
Before the votes were fully counted in Ecuador's latest elections, one candidate received a phone call from the US embassy assuring him that he would be in the second round. Fidel Narvaez, a Ecuadorian diplomat, tells Sputnik that this is only part of what appears to be a concerted effort to undermine the election results. Ecuador is due to have its second round of elections in April. Although the progressive candidate, Andrés Arauz, won by a large margin, he did not win by enough to avoid a runoff. However, the parliamentary results via the National Assembly are final, with the progressive candidates winning more seats than any other. The results of the presidential and parliamentary elections reflect an overall rejection of neo-liberalism by the Ecuadorian population at large.

Ecuador Elections: Arauz And Lasso Advance To Second Round

February 20, 2021 Telesur English. , , ,
Ecuador's National Electoral Council (CNE) confirmed on Friday that Creating Opportunities' (CREO) candidate Guillermo Lasso would face the first-round winner Andres Arauz on the second round of the presidential elections on April 11. With 100 percent of the ballot records processed, the electoral body reported that the Union for Hope (UNES) Andres Arauz won with 32.72 percent of the votes while Lasso received 19.74 percent. This after the preliminary results were challenged by Pachacutik candidate Yaku Pérez, alleging fraud. Pérez ended third. However, the CNE authorities said that some packages from abroad with assembly members' votes still have to be counted. Hence, the ultimate announcement will take place over the weekend.

Will Andrés Arauz Be The Next President Of Ecuador?

February 18, 2021 Vijay Prashad and Pilar Troya Fernández, Peoples Dispatch. , , ,
In Ecuador’s presidential election held on February 7, 2021, Andrés Arauz won the largest number of votes but could not prevail in the first round against 15 other candidates; he won 32.71 percent of the vote, short of the 40 percent needed to win the election outright (a winner also requires a 10 percent lead over the second-place candidate, which Arauz did achieve). More than a week after that first round, it remains unclear which of the two candidates who most closely trailed Arauz will go head-to-head against him in the second round on April 11. Both of these candidates—Guillermo Lasso and Yaku Pérez—each won around 19 percent of the vote and await a recount to verify who will face Arauz.

US, OAS, Colombia Try To Steal Ecuador’s election

February 16, 2021 Ben Norton, The Grayzone. , , ,
Guayaquil, Ecuador - A popular socialist candidate, Andrés Arauz, won the first round of Ecuador’s historic presidential election by a landslide on February 7. The leftist’s overwhelming victory prompted the US State Department, the right-wing government of neighboring Colombia, and the Organization of American States (OAS) to mobilize to prevent him from entering office. Arauz won the first round of the election with 33 percent of the vote, a full 13 percent greater than the second-place candidate, conservative banker Guillermo Lasso. His opponents are now seeking to force a vote recount under the supervision of the OAS, while simultaneously launching a smear campaign...

Lawfare Threatens To Derail Presidential Election In Ecuador

February 16, 2021 William Camacaro and Frederick B. Mills. , , ,
On February 7, the progressive presidential candidate for the Union of Hope Alliance (UNES) party, Andrés Arauz, won first place in Ecuador’s presidential election; this is uncontested. Arauz garnered 32.71% of the vote; right-wing former banker Guillermo Lasso 19.74%; and the “Indigenous” candidate, Yaku Pérez  19.38%. Since Arauz’s margin of victory was less than the required 40% plus at least ten points more than the closest competitor, a runoff is scheduled for April 11th. With the UN calling for transparency and Pérez contesting the outcome, Ecuador’s National Electoral Council (CNE) has agreed to conduct a partial recount to verify the second place contender. 

US Meddling In Ecuador’s Historic Election And Fake NGO ‘Left’

February 14, 2021 Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton, Moderate Rebels. , , ,
Max Blumenthal speaks with Ben Norton, who is reporting from Ecuador, on the historic February 7 election, and how the US government, regime-change networks, and wealthy oligarchs are trying to prevent the return of the socialist Citizens' Revolution movement of former President Rafael Correa. We discuss the fake NGO "left," represented by coup-supporting pseudo-environmentalist candidate Yaku Pérez, and how a victory of leftist Andrés Arauz could help bring back the progressive, anti-imperialist Pink Tide in Latin America.
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