Bloomberg Línea — The general elections in Ecuador are taking place Sunday, with the first votes having been cast since Thursday for the incarcerated, and with a little over 13 million Ecuadorians eligible to vote. However, polling day has been overshadowed by the assassination of candidate Fernando Villavicencio on August 9, and ongoing violence in the days leading up to the polls.
“The unexpected is part of politics. In the last six days, in which polls could not be published, we have seen the most drastic changes,” Álvaro Marchante, manager of Comunicaliza, a market research and polling company, said this week.
“All previous results are invalidated. The trends have changed. The murder of the mayor of Manta started a mourning in society that became more acute with the murder of candidate Villavicencio”, Marchante wrote on social networks.
For Marchante, society is “dismayed”, since one out of every two Ecuadorians considers insecurity as the biggest problem that “affects them the most” and the panorama in Ecuador is “unstable”.
“When this happens, public perception changes. Are we in for surprises? Maybe big surprises”, were his words ahead of Sunday’s elections and the results.
Marchante’s words were echoed by public affairs consultancy Elemento, which pointed out in a report this week that, “since August 10, the panorama has completely changed. The commotion generated amid public opinion marks a high level of volatility in voting intentions that could provoke changes in the position of the candidates and could even have implications in the composition of the Assembly”.
Citizen security is one of the main concerns of Ecuadorians. A recent survey of the company Tracking established that the main problems of the country, according to citizens are: insecurity (44%), economy (30%), corruption (14%) and others (12%).
For these elections, which were called in May by President Guillermo Lasso, the electoral authority had authorized 14 legal entities to make electoral forecasts. Likewise, exit polls were authorized, which will deliver preliminary, but not official, results of the presidential elections later Sunday.
More violence
More violence involving an elected official was reported in the country on Friday when the car in which Francisco Tamariz, mayor of the coastal town of La Libertad, was traveling, the local police reported.
Tamariz described the incident on social media as an assassination attempt and said gunmen, some dressed as police officers, others in civilian clothes, fired 30 shots at his vehicle on Friday night. Tamariz, his wife and two other people with them escaped unharmed as the vehicle was bullet proof, he said in a post on X, the social media network formerly known as Twitter, accompanied by a photo of the bullet-ridden truck.
What the opinion polls say
On the deadline set by the country’s electoral authority NEC for the publication of polls, two results were published: Marchante (of Comunicaliza) stated that a poll conducted between August 8 and 9 put the candidate Luisa González, of Revolución Ciudadana, ahead with 31% of voting intentions, while in second place was Jan Topic, with 15.7%.
However, Marchante pointed out that this poll was with data prior to Villavicencio’s death, and that that event could change the outcome “unexpectedly”.
A poll conducted by the company Tracking between August 9 and 10, at the closing of the deadline established by the NEC, also placed Luisa Gonzalez ahead, with 20.9% of voters’ intentions, followed by Otto Sonnenholzner (18.6%) and Jan Topic (16.8%).
Likelihood of a second round
Candidates need 50% of the votes to win Sunday’s election outright, or at least 40% with a 10-point lead over the closest opponent. If no candidate achieves this, a runoff election would take place on October 15.
According to polls published on August 10, the possibility of a second-round runoff are 32% for Gonzalez vs. Topic, 24% for Gonzalez vs. Otto and 16% for Gonzalez vs. Yaku.
In mid-July, a survey conducted by Comunicaliza for the communication and strategy company Atrevia gave Luisa Gonzalez voting intentions of 26.8%, meaning she would not win by a clear majority.
“Although there will be a second round, it is difficult to know who will face off against Luisa Gonzalez, of the Citizen Revolution party [the party of left-wing former president Rafael Correa]. Otto Sonnenholzner (Avanza-Suma) would be the most likely candidate to compete in a second round, with almost 13% of voting intentions”, Atrevia forecast.