July 20, 2020
The Grupo de Puebla denounces and rejects the decision made by the National Election Council of Ecuador to eliminate the electoral registration of the party Fuerza Compromiso Social, which is partly formed by the members of the Revolución Ciudadana movement, led by former President Rafael Correa.
This decision, which had been denied by the National Election Council eight times and its appeal had been archived by the Election Dispute Tribunal, under the effect of res judicata, has come as a result of improper and unconstitutional pressure by the Contraloría del Estado, an organism that has nothing to do with the electoral function and follows instructions from President Lenin Moreno.
This act of political bias calls into question the legitimacy of the election that will take place on February 7, 2021 in Ecuador and it constitutes a serious regional precedent, which allows, by means of forbidding electoral opposition, to alter beforehand the legitimate expression of the people’s will, essential to democracy.
The group respectfully, but emphatically, calls on the members of the National Electoral Council – who have been threatened of being removed by the Comptroller General – to reconsider this decision. Democracy in Ecuador should not go down the path of arbitrariness, nor should we see return of the infamous practices of past military dictatorships.
As a consequence, we alert the international community about the grave peril caused by this situation to the already difficult task of democratic continuity in the hemisphere.
- Luiz Inácio “Lula” Da Silva
- Ernesto Samper
- Dilma Rousseff
- Carlos Ominami
- Aloizio Mercadante
- Daniel Martínez
- Celso Amorim
- Fernando Lugo
- Iván Cepeda
- Hugo Martínez
- Marco Enríquez-Ominami
- Karol Cariola
- Alejandro Navarro
- Adriana Salvatierra
- David Choquehuanca
- Guillaume Long
- Mónica Xavier
- Carlos Sotelo
- Clara López
- Esperanza Martinez
- María José Pizarro
- José Miguel Insulza