Ecuador: the highway to hell, by Maurice Lemoine (Le Monde diplomatique

It was 10pm on 20 August, and Guayaquil – ‘Pearl of the Pacific’ and Ecuador’s financial capital – was darkish. Information had simply damaged that Luisa González, the left’s candidate from the Citizen Revolution Motion (RC), had received the primary spherical of the presidential election with 33.61% of the vote. She would face businessman Daniel Noboa, candidate for Nationwide Democratic Motion (ADN, with 23.47%) and son of a multimillionaire banana tycoon, within the second spherical.

Festivities, fireworks, slogan chanting within the streets? Nothing, regardless of the balmy climate, ultimate for victory celebrations. Not a soul to be discovered, save possibly 60 Noboa supporters gathered in a pool of sunshine exterior a lodge on Avenida 12, alongside the Malecón, the promenade that strains the Guayas river. The one indicators of life close to the Plaza San Francisco or Centenario Park, within the metropolis centre, got here from clusters of individuals sleeping tough alongside the darkish, colonnaded avenues. The streets have been empty even across the RC-run Palacio Municipal (city corridor). A obscure foreboding instructed me I had higher not linger.

Some now name this metropolis ‘Guayakill’ as a result of many shootings, revenge killings and automotive bombs. It’s a part of a broader downside: 2022 was Ecuador’s deadliest yr on file, with 4,450 murders (84% shootings) and a murder fee of 25.5 per 100,000 inhabitants, making the nation the area’s most harmful. However occasions on 9 August took issues to the following stage. Ten days earlier than the election, presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated; he had been an investigative journalist and an MP. Earlier than his loss of life, he had spoken of threats from ‘Fito’ (José Macías Villamar), the imprisoned chief of the Los Choneros drug cartel.

Three politicians have been killed in July alone, together with Agustín Intriago, mayor of the port city of Manta. A neighborhood RC chief, Pedro Briones, misplaced his life six days after Villavicencio in Esmeraldas. But beneath leftist president Rafael Correa (2007-17), an economist who promoted the ‘citizen (…)

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