Presidential and parliamentary elections in Ecuador in 2021

 

The candidates in the
presidential runoff election:
Guillermo Lasso (left)
and Andrés Arauz (right)

The presidential and parliamentary elections in Ecuador in 2021 took place in the spring of 2021. The election of the National Assembly (Asamblea Nacional) and the first round of the presidential election were held on February 7, 2021. On April 11th, the presidential runoff election that had become necessary took place.

The election was influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic crisis in the country, which is dependent on oil exports. Accordingly, among other things, overcoming the crises in the economy and health care as well as the promotion of COVID-19 vaccinations in Ecuador were decisive election campaign topics.

Presidential election

background

The incumbent President Moreno did not stand for re-election.

President Lenín Moreno , who has been in office since the 2017 election , did not run for re-election due to poor poll numbers, although he would have been eligible for a further term. Fifteen candidates and one female candidate from various parties, movements and alliances applied to succeed him. Among them was Lucio Gutiérrez (PSP), a former president who led the country from 2003 to 2005.

The Ecuadorian electoral system provides for a two-stage presidential election. In the first round, those who can collect at least 40% of the votes and have at least ten percentage points ahead of the runner-up are elected. Otherwise there will be a runoff election in which the absolute majority counts. The presidential candidates also nominate a candidate for the office of vice-president, both of which are to be voted on together. The elections are organized by the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE, in German: Nationaler Wahlrat ).

Promising candidates

In the polls before the election, three candidates led by a clear margin and could therefore hope for a place in the second round.

The left-wing Andrés Arauz was supported by the Unión por la Esperanza (UNES, in German: Association for Hope ), an alliance of the Fuerza Compromiso Social (FCS) and the Movimiento Centro Democrático (CD). Arauz was the political foster son of the controversial ex-President Rafael Correa , under whom he was already Minister of Culture, and represented his course of the "revolution of the citizens" and socialism of the 21st century . Originally Correa was supposed to run for Vice-President of Arauz himself, but this was not possible because of his conviction for corruption. Arauz's election manifesto included, for example, an increase in government subsidies and an end to the austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund .

Opposite him was Guillermo Lasso, a conservative politician and the largest shareholder in the Banco de Guayaquil , who at the turn of the millennium had already been the “super minister” for economics. Lasso applied for the presidency for the third time after 2013 and 2017 with the Movimiento Creando Oportunidades (CREO), which he founded, with the support of the Christian Social Partido Social Cristiano (PSC) . In the two previous elections, he had reached the runoff election, but was subject to the candidates of the left spectrum with Correa and Moreno. Before the election, he advertised that he wanted to lead the country out of the crisis with economically liberal policies, tax cuts and opening up to foreign investors.

Former prefect of Azuay Province , Yaku Pérez , supported by the indigenous Pachakutik (MUPP) , started a program for ecological change, human rights and respect for the interests of the indigenous population of Ecuador. He distanced himself from both Correa's policies and the neoliberal course of Moreno and Lasso.

Election result

In the first round of the presidential election on February 7th, Andrés Arauz was able to unite the most votes (32.7%) by a clear margin, but did not achieve the required majority. The runner-up Lasso (19.74%) and Yaku Pérez in third place (19.39%) were separated by only about 30,000 votes or 0.35 percentage points. Behind them, Xavier Hervas ( ID ) achieved a significant number of votes with 15.7% as the fourth candidate, the other candidates did not get more than just under two percent. Due to the tight election result between Lasso and Pérez, Pérez requested a recount in 17 of the 24 provinces on suspicion of election manipulation, which was rejected by the electoral council. Pérez and the Pachakutik then called on their supporters not to vote for any of the candidates in the runoff election and to invalidate the vote.

In the runoff election between the first two placed on April 11th, Guillermo Lasso won with 52.5% and about five percentage points ahead of Arauz (47.5%) and was thus elected President of Ecuador. His four-year term begins on May 24, 2021.

Presidential election results

list	Party or alliance	candidate		Vice	First round		Second round
					voices	%	voices	%
21/6	Movimiento Creando Oportunidades / Partido Social Cristiano (CREO / PSC)		Guillermo Lasso	Alfredo Borrero	1,830,172	19.74	4,537,876	52.46
1/5	Unión por la Esperanza (UNES)		Andrés Arauz	Carlos Rabascall	3,033,791	32.72	4,111,762	47.54
18th	Movimiento de Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik (MUPP)		Yaku Perez	Virna Cedeño	1,798,057	19.39
12th	Izquierda Democrática (ID)		Xavier Hervas	Maria Sara Jijón	1,453,915	15.68
16	Acción Movilizadora Independiente Generando Oportunidades (AMIGO)		Pedro José Freile	Byron Solís	192.763	2.08
8th	Partido Político Avanza (AVANZA)		Isidro Romero	Sofía Merino	172.714	1.86
3	Partido Sociedad Patriótica (PSP)		Lucio Gutiérrez	David Norero	164,800	1.78
4th	Movimiento Ecuatoriano Unido (MEU)		Gerson Almeida	Martha Villafuerte	160,572	1.73
35	Alianza PAIS (PAIS)		Ximena Peña	Patricio Barriga	143.160	1.54
23	Partido Sociedad Unida Más Acción (SUMA)		Guillermo Celi	Verónica Seville	84,640	0.91
25th	Movimiento Construye (MC25)		Juan Fernando Velasco	Ana María Pesántes	76,349	0.82
17/51	Alianza Honestidad (MC-PSE)		César Montúfar	Julio Villacreses	57,620	0.62
20th	Democracia Sí (DSÍ)		Gustavo Larrea	Alexandra Peralta	36,903	0.40
10	Fuerza Ecuador (FE)		Carlos Sagnay	Narda Ortiz	26,524	0.29
19th	Unión Ecuatoriana (UE)		Giovanny Andrade	Katherine Mata	20,245	0.22
33	Movimiento Nacional Juntos Podemos (MNJP)		Paúl Carrasco	Frank Vargas Anda	19,809	0.21

The election results show regional differences between the provinces on the coast and the Andean highlands ( Sierra ) and Amazonia. While Arauz won a majority vote in all coastal provinces (with the exception of the Galápagos Islands ) in the first ballot, the majority of the inhabitants of the highlands and Amazonia voted for Yaku Pérez. Guillermo Lasso was only able to win the capital province of Pichincha and the Galápagos Islands in the country. Xavier Hervas achieved a majority in Carchi .

In the second ballot, the majority of the inhabitants of the provinces in which Pérez had previously voted for Lasso, who also won the provinces of Imbabura and Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas (parts of the Sierra) of Arauz.

Majorities in the provinces in the first round

Arauz

lasso

Perez

Hervaz

Majorities in the provinces in the second round

Arauz

lasso

General election

composition

The 137 seats of the Ecuadorian parliament, the National Assembly, are composed as follows:

• 15 MPs from national lists (nacional)
• 116 members of provincial lists
• 6 MPs from Lists of Emigrants (exterior) : 2 for the United States and Canada; 2 for Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa; 2 for Europe, Asia and Oceania

Distribution of the seats in the National Assembly for the parliamentary election in 2021

The 24 provinces of Ecuador had 116 of the 137 seats in parliament. These were distributed differently:

Number of parliamentary seats per province

province	Seats
Azuay	5
Cañar	3
Chimborazo	4th
El Oro	5
Galápagos	2
Imbabura	4th
Los Rios	6th
Morona Santiago	2
Orellana	2
Pichincha	16
Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas	4th
Tungurahua	4th
Bolívar	3
Carchi	3
Cotopaxi	4th
Esmeraldas	4th
Guayas	20th
Loja	4th
Manabí	9
Napo	2
Pasta	2
Santa Elena	3
Sucumbíos	3
Zamora chinchipe	2

Election result

Distribution of seats

51

26th

18th

17th

12th

3

2

2

2

1

1

1

1

51 26th 18th 17th 12th 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 

A total of 137 seats

• UNES : 51
• MUPP : 26
• PSC : 18
• ID : 17
• CREO : 12
• Local : 3
• MC-PSE : 2
• MEU : 2
• AVANZA : 2
• PSP : 1
• DSÍ : 1
• UE : 1
• MC25 : 1

In the parliamentary elections, the Unión por la Esperanza (UNES) emerged as the strongest force, followed by Pachakutik (MUPP), the Izquierda Democrática (ID) and the Partido Social Cristiano (PSC). The latter won one more seat from the provinces, so that it has one more seat in parliament than the ID. Of the 13,107,364 registered voters, 10,616,457 turned up to vote (turnout: 81.00%) and cast 8,025,416 valid votes (proportion of invalid votes: 24.4%). In total, there were around 300,000 more eligible voters than in 2017.

The Alianza PAIS of Lenín Moreno still 74 and 2013. 100 of the 137 seats in the last election held in 2017, with a substantial majority in the Asamblea Nacional, had lost all its parliamentary seats and only reached a voting share of only 2.8%. After the break with Moreno, the supporters of the ex-president Correa turned to his new group UNES with Andrés Arauz. The Pachakutik and the Izquierda Democrática also achieved significant gains.

The alliance of Creando Oportunidades (CREO) and PSC of the later elected new President Lasso has a total of 30 seats in parliament and therefore does not have a majority of its own.

Results of the general election

Party or alliance	voices	proportion of	Seats
			national	Provinces	Emigrants	total
Unión por la Esperanza (UNES)	2,584,595	32.21	5	42	4th	51
Movimiento de Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik (MUPP)	1,348,679	16.81	3	22nd	1	26th
Izquierda Democrática (ID)	961.513	11.98	2	15th	0	17th
Partido Social Cristiano (PSC)	780.541	9.73	2	16	0	18th
Movimiento Creando Oportunidades (CREO)	774.238	9.65	2	9	1	12th
Alianza Honestidad (MC-PSE)	301,369	3.76	1	1	0	2
Alianza PAIS (PAIS)	222.092	2.77	0	0	0	0
Movimiento Ecuatoriano Unido (MEU)	166,888	2.08	0	2	0	2
Partido Avanza (AVANZA)	154,529	1.93	0	2	0	2
Partido Sociedad Patriótica (PSP)	145.398	1.81	0	1	0	1
Unidad Popular (UP)	139,969	1.74	0	0	0	0
Partido Sociedad Unida Más Acción (SUMA)	135.038	1.68	0	0	0	0
Democracia Sí (DSÍ)	84.209	1.05	0	1	0	1
Fuerza Ecuador (FE)	70,854	0.87	0	0	0	0
Unión Ecuatoriana (UE)	59,080	0.74	0	1	0	1
Movimiento Construye (MC25)	57,711	0.72	0	1	0	1
Movimiento Nacional Juntos Podemos (MNJP)	37,438	0.47	0	0	0	0
Local alliances	-		0	3	0	3
total			15th	116	6th	137

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Presidential election in Ecuador: Left-wing candidate is in front. In: tagesschau.de. Retrieved April 13, 2021 . 
2. ^ ^{A b} Ecuador: Conservative Lasso wins presidential election. In: tagesschau.de. Retrieved April 13, 2021 . 
3. ↑ Rafael Abuchaibe: Ecuador picks president under the shadow of Covid . In: BBC News . April 11, 2021 ( bbc.com [accessed April 13, 2021]).
4. ↑ Conservative banker elected President of Ecuador. In: Gießener Anzeiger. April 12, 2021, accessed April 13, 2021 . 
5. ^ ^{A b} Ecuador: Sistemas Electorales / Electoral Systems. In: Political Database of the Americas. Center for Latin American Studies, accessed April 13, 2021 . 
6. ^ Elections: Ecuador Pres 2013. In: IFES Election Guide. Retrieved April 13, 2021 . 
7. ↑ Banker becomes president. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. Retrieved April 13, 2021 . 
8. ↑ Explainer: Ecuador's 2021 Presidential Elections. AS / COA, accessed April 13, 2021 . 
9. ↑ Knut Henkel: Elections in Ecuador: The indigenous candidate Yaku Pérez. In: Focus on Latin America. Retrieved April 13, 2021 . 
10. ↑ Rafael Romo: Indigenous leader becomes surprise contender in Ecuador's presidential election. In: edition.cnn.com. Retrieved April 13, 2021 . 
11. ↑ ^{a b} PRESENTACIÓN DE RESULTADOS PRELIMINARES ELECCIONES GENERALES 2021. In: Sistema Informático de Escrutinio y Resultados. Retrieved April 12, 2021 (Spanish). 
12. ↑ Ecuador's Lasso advances to presidential runoff; Perez disputes results . In: Reuters . February 21, 2021 ( reuters.com [accessed April 13, 2021]).
13. ↑ Alexandra Schmeil: Presidential election in Ecuador: Conaie boycotted the runoff election. In: amerika21.de. March 19, 2021, accessed April 13, 2021 . 
14. ↑ Al menos 122 asambleístas ya tienen su curul asegurada. In: Primicias. Retrieved April 12, 2021 (Spanish). 
15. ^ Resultados primera vuelta electoral. In: Primicias. Retrieved April 12, 2021 (Spanish).