Quito – Two days after their country’s general elections, Ecuadorians were still waiting Tuesday to learn the final results, which has only deepened the lack of faith in some extremely discredited institutions.
With the delivery of partial official results, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, or TSE, has tried to ease the growing uncertainty caused by the Brazilian E-vote company’s failure to provide unofficial tallies of the presidential and legislative races within hours of the polls closing on Sunday.
The TSE said Tuesday that with just over 53 percent of the ballots counted, leftist Rafael Correa has a slight lead over banana tycoon Alvaro Noboa in the presidential contest.
Those two candidates, from among an original field of 13, will face off next month in a runoff.
Correa, according to TSE figures, has 25.09 percent of the vote compared with 25.08 percent for Noboa. But E-vote, based on a tabulation of 72 percent of the ballots, shows the magnate leading the leftist by 26.67 percent to 22.49 percent.
TSE official Patricio Torres said that the total official results of the presidential election will possibly be available on Wednesday, and that by Thursday the total balloting for lawmakers will have been counted. Meanwhile E-vote promised to announce Tuesday its definitive results.
E-vote’s failure to deliver, which it blamed on the IT system, has been a disaster for the TSE, which before entering into the contract with the Brazilian firm had been warned of possible flaws in its procedures.
But the TSE went ahead and signed a $5.2 million contract with E-vote, and paid the firm half of the total in advance, which the Supreme Electoral Tribunal is now scrambling to retrieve by fining the Brazilian company.
The TSE gives itself 10 days to deliver the official results, as the provincial tribunals continue the vote recount supervised by representatives of the political parties.
The TSE decision to cancel its contract with E-vote has not lifted the veil of doubt hanging over the recount and has led Correa’s followers to suspect fraud.
The head of the mission of observers from the Organization of American States (OAS), former Argentine Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa, said Tuesday that they have received no complaints nor have they found any reason to speak of fraud.
He also said that, based on E-vote trials before the elections, the OAS observers had warned of flaws in the company’s work.
The complaints of fraud – with no evidence to back them – hurled by Correa’s movement, the TSE’s denials, and the victorious crowing by Noboa’s party gave way Tuesday to more sober analyses of possible political alliances for the runoff scheduled for Nov. 26.
Noboa’s PRIAN party was founded eight years ago as a vehicle for the billionaire’s second try at being elected president, while the leftist Country Alliance movement was formed recently with the aim of getting Correa into the running.
Both presidential finalists have been outspoken critics of Ecuador’s traditional parties.
But these criticisms, launched most fervently by Correa, which won the backing of many Ecuadorians fed up with traditional politics, are now inconveniently burdensome.
Both PRIAN and the Country Alliance movement depend on coalitions to have a chance at the presidency, so their leaders have had to tone down their language and give assurances that while they won’t deal with leaders of the parties they have so rejected, they will be happy to talk to the rank and file.
The traditional parties are also studying what their future stance should be, and although none has said so officially, some of their militants have expressed openly or have intimated their support for one or another of the candidates. EFE
