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Translated by MLtranslations.org and Red Phoenix staff.

With revolutionary greetings we present this summary of the results of the elections that took place in Ecuador on March 24th of this year.

The electoral campaign in our country has concluded in which offices of the Decentralized Autonomous Governments (GADs) were elected: Provincial prefects, mayors, urban and rural councilors in the cantons, and members of the Parish Councils; that is, a few thousand representatives whose candidacies to those nominations had to be sponsored by those parties and political movements legally qualified by the National Electoral Council.

This was the first election that has taken place since the “Decade of Correaism,” and has resulted in the unusual proliferation of thousands of candidates for different offices. Therefore, there was a great dispersion of national political forces and local movements; the establishment of totally dissimilar and incoherent alliances favored by the large bourgeois parties; and nominations offered to potential candidates without any ideological and political alignment, with the sole support of bourgeois political leaders. In this way, through patronage and demagogy, through “gifts” that were given to villagers to gain their support; through the uncontrolled use of State resources for certain campaigns; through huge amounts of money for millionaire propaganda that abusively mocked established norms; and through other cheating mechanisms, was the tone of this process established.

This electoral campaign was seen by the Communists of Ecuador as an important political battle of popular forces against the machinery of the bourgeoisie, of the remaining followers of Correaism, and of the existing government. Our Party traced in time the character that the campaign should have. It should serve to unmask the anti-popular policy of the current government, the different representatives of the bourgeoisie and the caciques (“bosses”) that serve them in the different organs of local government. To deepen the unmasking and fight against the nefarious actions of corruption, misgovernment, and Correaist authoritarianism. To win sectors of workers, youth, women and the people to a defined left-wing position; to disseminate proposals attentive to their most heartfelt needs. To choose the best men and women as candidates; and to develop a unitary action of the left, together with the parties, and democratic and patriotic individuals who share this view.

Unidad Popular (“Popular Unity”), a political movement of the revolutionary left, which the Leninist-Marxists consistently support, as legalized by the National Electoral Council, organized throughout the country. Unidad Popular took up the red flag in this electoral contest and deployed its actions in the cities and fields, facing with courage and consequence the machinery deployed by the bourgeoisie, its parties and its candidates, to obtain a victory that we want to share with our comrades and friends at an international level.

A necessary issue to point out is that the decision and tenacity with which our militants, the members of Unidad Popular, the leaders of various social organizations, the allied political parties and movements, our fellow candidates, their relatives and friends, with limited economic and material resources, imprinted throughout the campaign the fact that they could fundamentally overcome these limitations and show that the left forces were alive and active in the country’s political scene.

With public agreement and in alliance with parties and movements of this trend, we have managed to win the provincial prefectures in Cotopaxi, in the Sierra region; Orellana and Zamora in the Amazon; the mayoralties in the provincial capitals of Esmeraldas, Machala in the province of El Oro on the coast, and Francisco de Orellana in the Amazon; 12 mayoralties in cantons of different provinces and about 80 urban and rural councilors, and members of parish boards at the local level.

This victory undoubtedly shows that the objectives that were proposed for this campaign have been met with the efforts of the revolutionaries, the leftists, the communists, and all those who aspire to social change. This victory opens up better prospects for the recovery of popular forces, the greater revival of social movements, a more persistent process of the unity of the democratic and left tendency, and the growth and development of Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador.

With fraternal greetings,

Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador

March 28, 2019

Categories: Ecuador, International