ASO

In terms of the electoral terrain there are also divisions that will play themselves out in the march. It’s important to note, for example, that Pachakutik is now divided. National Pachakutik is now openly aligned with the Right. And, electorally, the Popular Democratic Movement (MPD) no longer exists, because they lost legal status under this administration — they have spent the last few months collecting new signatures to be legally recognized again as a party.

It’s crucial to understand that to participate in the elections you have to be legally registered. And who is legally registered among the social movements? Who can play a role in the elections? Pachakutik — with its majority current openly aligning with the Right? Podemos exists as well, a new formation, but it’s tiny. What remains? Alianza País and the Right.

And in those regions where Pachakutik is not aligned with the Right, and in which the party still responds to social struggles, it’s still not a relevant actor because it has not devised a strategy to defeat those at the national level within the party that have made agreements with the Right.

Within AP they still haven’t determined whether or not it’s a good idea for Correa to run for a third reelection. They are waiting for the Right to decide on their candidate first, and after will decide who is best from AP to run.

The Right is likely to choose a candidate who is able to position himself as a moderate, modern candidate, not associated with the far right. They are likely to build something like a Front for Democracy, or something of that kind. Within AP right now they are trying out different figures in the party, assuming public roles, to see how they are received. None of them are being well received, however.

One of the problems is that the government has often talked about dialogue, but it’s mainly been an internal dialogue within AP. There’s a cartoonist here who has been targeted by the government. One of his best cartoons was called “Correa’s Open Dialogue,” and it featured Correa talking to Correa talking to Correa talking to Correa. That is the nature of Correísmo, a dialogue with itself. The future of AP is unclear. The government is showing various signs of weakness, and it doesn’t know what to do.

We have offered to enter into a dialogue with Correa, but only under certain conditions. They have always been rejected by the government, with accusations that we are acting together with those plotting a soft coup. There have therefore been zero opportunities for dialogue.

If the government thought that the plotting of a soft coup was actually going on, that the country was actually in such a dire crisis, would Correa have decided — as he has — to fly to Suriname at this juncture for the first time on a presidential visit? If he thought the country was on the brink, he wouldn’t be in Suriname. It’s absurd.

The government has selected various representatives to systematically illegitimate the march and it hasn’t worked. You can see this in the mobilizations of people that have been greeting the march as it’s made its way to Quito. In Cuenca, people from AP tried to confront and provoke participants in the march. And it was the unorganized population in Cuenca that spontaneously organized a wall around the marchers and prevented those mobilized by AP from getting any closer. This is an important signal of the tenor of the moment. There’s popular support for this march.

Obviously, there are also Correístas, supporters of the government, but they have no strategy to confront this march. The government has not been able to organize a counter-march. They are not saying that they’re going to mobilize people to come out in the streets to defend the revolution. They said recently that they’ve been sending out people to protect the highways, and you can see that no one is out defending the highways.

It’s a very tense situation. It’s a very complicated conjuncture. The entire political world of Ecuador is vying to determine who will be presidential candidates in the 2017 elections. Tomorrow, what is Lasso going to do? How is Nebot going to intervene in Guayaquíl? Everything that happens tomorrow is going to play a role in determining what happens for the rest of this political year. If the Left intervenes forcefully in this moment it will enable it to strengthen its political position vis-à-vis the Right and vis-à-vis the Correa administration.

Of course the Right will be in the streets tomorrow. And they have a right to demonstrate and associate. But a genuine politics of the Left means contesting them and winning the streets. The alternative is to watch things happen on the television while checking social media. Why not get out and support the popular organizations? The key to winning this is for more than the organized left to be involved. For the unorganized to be incorporated, and for these sectors to add their new demands to those of the existing Left.

The People’s Strike offers an opportunity to build a broad, democratic front, that incorporates the various tendencies and currents of the Left. It’s not a credible position to stick only to the tiny sectors of the already-organized left. The stronger the Left is, the better position it will be in to negotiate the terms of a broad left that will have to include some social-democratic layers. But if we’re strong we will be able to determine the program, determine the list of candidates and so on.

Thus far, the Left has lacked a strategy to incorporate existing feminist organizations, which because of their own internal limitations and the closed character of the Left itself have felt excluded. The Left has failed to relate to various citizen’s groups that don’t feel represented by the Left’s programs, but which are willing to mobilize in different forms. Isolated intellectual layers in the world of the NGOs also lack organic links, both to the Left and to social movements. These are some of the clear limits of the Left to date.

But what does this imply? It implies that we should be active in the construction of something new, that we should be involved in what’s unfolding tomorrow. Our answer shouldn’t be that we’re not going to be involved because the Right will have a presence in the streets, or because the platforms of the existing left or the various social organizations involved aren’t pure.

This kind of moralistic approach to politics is a product precisely of Correísmo, a signal of its successes. There are limitations to the events of tomorrow, but if you are on the Left and you don’t get involved, you’re lending passive support to this administration. It’s a complex moment, and it’s necessary to intervene politically.