Elections in Ecuador 2006
Rafael Correa
Alvaro Noboa
The 2006 election in Ecuador took place on October 15, 2006 . The president and vice-president (direct), the 100 members of the National Congress , the five representatives of Ecuador in the Andean parliament and members of the provincial and city councils were elected. The runoff election for the office of president took place on November 26th, at the same time as a referendum on health and education programs and a vote in the canton of Santo Domingo de los Colorados to make it a province.
A total of 9,165,125 Ecuadorians were required to vote, 143,352 of them registered abroad, but only for the presidential election. Polling stations were set up outside Ecuador for the first time, in a total of 36 consulates in 21 countries. In Germany, 527 people were eligible to vote in the consulates in Hamburg and Berlin. In Ecuador, voting is mandatory for all responsible citizens between the ages of 18 and 65 who are not illiterate.
procedure
The elections were generally calm and without any particular incident. The OAS chief election observer , former Argentine Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa , said on October 20 that the first round of elections was going to be the order of the day. He had no reports of election fraud. The only minor incidents took place in the small canton of Muisne in Esmeraldas , where ballot papers were burned and citizens demonstrated against non-residents coming to the elections. Here the vote was repeated on October 29th. In Murcia , Spain , where around 30,000 Ecuadorian emigrants voted, there were tumults in front of the polling site, an advanced training center, as voters feared that they would not be able to do their voting due to the long queues. There were some injured here.
Since the computer center of the Brazilian E-Vote consortium, which is responsible for evaluating the rapid counting, failed on the evening of the election, only 70% of the votes in the presidential election were counted in the rapid process and around 45% were regularly counted two days after the election. The final result of the first round of the presidential election was only available a week and a half after the election, and shortly afterwards the result of the election to the Andean parliament. On November 10, 2006, the election results for the National Congress were also known. In the second ballot, e-votes were no longer used.
The election organizer, the Supreme Electoral Court of Ecuador, canceled the contract with E-Vote on October 16 for non-fulfillment and began counting the votes itself. The Pichincha Provincial Prosecutor's Office ruled that the documents and the head of the EVote delegation were not allowed to leave the country. This order was lifted at the end of November 2006, and the head of the delegation left for Washington on November 30th. The computers used were confiscated and the network examined by experts from the National Polytechnic University. On December 27, 2006, the Supreme Electoral Court brought an action against E-Vote for breach of contract before the agreed arbitration board of the Quito Chamber of Commerce and demanded compensation in the amount of 5.2 million US dollars, which corresponded to almost the entire original order volume. In September 2007 the arbitration procedure was decided in favor of the Supreme Electoral Court. E-Vote's guaranteed payments ($ 2.6 million) and Supreme Electoral Court fines ($ 572,000) were awarded to the Electoral Court for non-performance of the contract.
In October and November, the members of the Supreme Electoral Court were publicly brought into connection with corruption or irregularities in the conclusion of the contract, as they are said to have failed to obtain the expertises and powers required for the conclusion of the contract; however, these allegations were without legal consequences.
The runoff election for the presidency went without any major obstacles. On the day of the presidential runoff election, the head of the Election Observation Commission, Bielsa, left Ecuador for Washington. The following week, the Argentine press reported that it was because of death threats against him. The Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry assured that the government had no knowledge of it and had guaranteed Bielsa's safety at all times. Bielsa had been accused of bias against him by the candidate Rafael Correa and had been brought into contact in the press with the Argentine head of the E-Vote delegation, Santiago Murray, who, according to Ecuadorian press reports, had also been an election observer for the OAS for years. Bielsa stated in an affidavit that she did not know Murray personally.
Presidential election
For the first round of voting, 13 candidates stood, who are listed below with their voting shares. Since none of the candidates was able to achieve more than 40% of the vote and ten percentage points ahead of the next-placed, a run-off election was held on November 26th between the two candidates with the most votes, Álvaro Noboa and Rafael Correa . The runoff election was won by the left-wing Correa, who came second in the first ballot, with 56.67 percent of the vote (Noboa: 43.33%), as the Supreme Court announced on December 4, 2006. Because of the clear lead, Correa had already been announced by the media as the winner on election evening and was also recognized as the election winner by the Organization of American States on November 27th .
After the first ballot, the good election results for Noboa and Gilmar Gutiérrez , the brother of President Lucio Gutiérrez , who was ousted in April 2005 , were a surprise, as Correa and León Roldós always occupied the top two places in the polls before the election , while Gutiérrez up ranked fifth. Analysts justified this discrepancy with the high proportion of votes Noboa and Gutiérrez received in rural and informally populated areas, which were not sufficiently taken into account in the election polls. Gutiérrez received the most votes in all five provinces in the Amazon basin, in some even more than 50%. Noboa won the coastal region, while Correa received the highest number of votes in most of the Andean provinces. Both Roldós and Correa were very critical of the survey practices.
In the second ballot, there was a clear directional election campaign, as Noboa announced a populist policy of conservative-neoliberal character and the end of diplomatic relations with Cuba and Venezuela and, with a view to his rivals, also declared war on “communism”, while the left-wing Correa for one Rapprochement with Venezuela, state interventionist policies and a new constituent assembly to overcome the influence of the traditional parties in administration and judiciary in the administration and judiciary, which he called “party democracy”, entered into a new constitution. Correa won with a surprisingly high lead, as he received significantly more votes than Noboa in all provinces of the Andean region and the Amazon lowlands as well as in the coastal provinces of El Oro and Los Ríos than Noboa, who only received the - albeit among the most populous - coastal provinces of Guayas, Manabí and Esmeraldas could win. Ecuadorian commentators also blamed Correa's victory on a great mobilization of voters against Noboa's election victory, citing the lower number of invalid votes (10.8%) compared to the first ballot with a higher turnout (approx. 76%) in the second ballot . The turnout in the first ballot was 72.2%, with 16.5% of the ballots cast being empty or invalid. In this context, the votes for the political climber Correa are also seen as votes against established parties and the clientelist politics, especially Noboas, who tried to hide them in the election campaign by giving away wheelchairs, computers and cash and with the prospect of microcredits and houses for the poor Layers advertised.
The official result in detail:
National Congress elections
In the elections for the National Congress, 100 seats were available. These were divided in advance between the 22 provinces of the country. Each province has at least two MPs. This number increases according to the number of inhabitants. In the most populous province of Guayas , 18 members were elected.
The registered parties and political movements could nominate candidates in each province after depositing sufficient signatures of support. The maximum number of nominated candidates corresponded to the number of MPs to be elected. On election day, each voter had as many votes as there were representatives to be elected in his province. These could be awarded to individual candidates from different lists as well as completely to candidates from one list.
In the evaluation, which was also carried out at the provincial level, the votes of those ballot papers whose votes were attributable to candidates from multiple lists were first converted into list vote equivalents. Then the list votes equivalents were added to the list votes. According to the total number of votes per list determined in this way, the seats at the provincial level were allocated to the lists. The d'Hondt method was used here . The seats for the individual lists were given to the candidates with the highest number of individual votes or, if the number of votes was equal, to those with higher positions on the list. The proportions of votes at national level were irrelevant for the composition of Parliament.
The following parties registered lists of candidates in at least eleven of the 22 provinces, with different electoral alliances (joint lists of candidates) between parties and political movements possible in each province: Partido Social Cristiano (PSC), Movimiento Popular Democrático (MPD), Partido Renovador Institucional Acción Nacional (PRIAN ), Partido Sociedad Patriótica (PSP), Izquierda Democrática (ID), Red Ética y Democracia (RED; mostly in alliance with ID), Pachakutik , Partido Roldosista Ecuatoriano (PRE), Unión Demócrata Cristiana (UDC), Partido Socialista - Frente Amplio (PS-FA), Movimiento de Reinvindicación Demócrata (MRD) and Concentración de Fuerzas Populares (CFP).
The announcement of the election results and the distribution of seats was delayed until November 10, as recounts were carried out in the provinces of Guayas and Manabí. After the counts, the distribution of the 100 seats in the National Congress was as follows:
| Political party | Seats |
of which electoral alliance |
Provinces of the mandate winners (electoral alliances in brackets) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Partido Renovador Institucional Acción Nacional (PRIAN) | 28 | 1 |
Guayas (7), Manabí, Pichincha (4 each), Chimborazo, Carchi, Esmeraldas (2 each), Azuay, El Oro, Imbabura, Loja, Los Ríos, Sucumbíos, Tungurahua, Orellana (with PS-FA and MOA) |
| Partido Sociedad Patriótica (PSP) | 24 | 1 |
Guayas, Los Ríos (3 each), Bolívar, Chimborazo, Napo, Pichincha, Tungurahua (2 each), Azuay, Cañar, Manabí, Morona Santiago, Orellana, Pastaza, Sucumbíos, Cotopaxi (with MIRC) |
| Partido Social Cristiano (PSC) | 13 | 1 |
Guayas (5), Azuay, Cotopaxi, El Oro, Galápagos, Loja, Manabí, Pichincha, Tungurahua (with UDC) |
| Izquierda Democrática (ID) | 7th | 6th |
Cotopaxi (1), Pichincha (with RED, 3), Azuay, Imbabura, El Oro (with RED, 1 each) |
| Pachakutik | 6th | 0 |
Bolívar, Cañar, Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, Morona Santiago, Zamora Chinchipe |
| Partido Roldosista Ecuatoriano (PRE) | 6th | 0 |
Guayas (2), El Oro, Esmeraldas, Los Ríos, Manabí |
| Red Ética y Democracia (RED) | 5 | 4th |
Guayas (1), Pichincha (with ID, 2), Cañar, Loja (with ID, 1 each) |
| Unión Demócrata Cristiana (UDC) | 5 | 3 |
Manabí, Pichincha, Charchi (with MSC), Galápagos (with ID), Zamora Chinchipe (with RED) |
| Movimiento Popular Democrático (MPD) | 3 | 0 | Esmeraldas, pastaza, pichincha |
| Partido Socialista - Frente Amplio (PS-FA) | 1 | 1 | Imbabura (with Pachakutik) |
| Movimiento Ciudadano Nuevo País (MCNP) | 1 | 0 | Azuay |
| Acción Regional for the Equidad (ARE) | 1 | 0 | Loja |
| Source: Así quedó el nuevo Congreso , El Universo, November 11, 2006, and the Supreme Electoral Court of Ecuador | |||
This means that the two parties of Álvaro Noboa (PRIAN) and Lucio Gutiérrez (PSP), the president who was overthrown in April 2005, were the clear winners in terms of both votes and seats.
The PSC and the ID were the two strongest parties in the previous Congress, with 25 and 16 seats respectively at the beginning of the last legislative period. The PRE and Pachakutik, the party of the indigenous movement, also lost seats. The political movement of the presidential candidate León Roldós, RED, which mostly appeared in the electoral alliance with ID, will be a new political force in parliament. The political movements ARE and MCNP are also moving into parliament again or after a legislative period without representatives. The parties Concentración de Fuerzas Populares and Integración Nacional Alfarista lost their representation in the National Congress.
Election of representatives in the Andean parliament
Five representatives were to be elected in the election of the representatives of Ecuador in the parliamentary assembly of the Andean Community . Voting was done on uniform national party lists, not on individual candidates.
A total of 6.49 million ballot papers were cast, of which 2.20 million were blank or invalid (33.9%). Two of the five seats will be assigned to the PRIAN , one each to the Partido Sociedad Patriótica (PSP), Partido Social Cristiano (PSC) and the alliance of Correas Movimiento PAÍS and Partido Socialista - Frente Amplio (MPAÍS / PS-FA). For the PSP the former Minister of Commerce Ivonne Juez de Baki moves into the Andean parliament and for MPAÍS / PS-FA the former head of the state bank guarantee agency Wilma Salgado . The elected candidates for PRIAN and PSC, Wilson Homero Sánchez and Marcelo Dotti, were members of the Congress in the previous term. Dotti was also chairman of his party in Pichincha Province. The second PRIAN candidate elected, Freddy Giler, is a lawyer and politician from Manabí Province.
Election result in detail (source: Ecuadorian Supreme Electoral Court):
| Political party | be right | percent | Seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| PRIAN | 1,040,750 | 24.5 | 2 |
| PSP | 742.816 | 17.5 | 1 |
| PSC | 575.241 | 13.5 | 1 |
| Alianza PAÍS / PS-FA | 520.989 | 12.3 | 1 |
| Allianz Red Ética y Democracia / ID | 406.914 | 9.6 | 0 |
| UDC | 344,664 | 8.1 | 0 |
| PRE | 241,450 | 5.7 | 0 |
| MPD | 138,438 | 3.3 | 0 |
| Pachakutik | 128,604 | 3.0 | 0 |
| BILLION | 41,383 | 1.0 | 0 |
| CFP | 31.096 | 0.7 | 0 |
| ATR | 19,061 | 0.4 | 0 |
| INA | 17,919 | 0.4 | 0 |
Individual evidence
- ↑ El Vocero de e-vote se fue a Washington, MetroHOY (Free Edition for public transport of Diario HOY, Quito), December 4, 2006; Redacción Judicial, Un juez levantó el arraigo contra Santiago Murray ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), El Comercio , December 2, 2006.
- ↑ Tribunal Supremo Electoral demanda a E-Vote en centro arbitral, Diario HOY , December 28, 2006; Carlos Pólit asumió hoy su despacho en Quito ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), elcomercio.com, February 21, 2007.
- ↑ Árbitro avala la actuación del TSE , El Comercio, September 8, 2007.
- ↑ Ana Baron, Bielsa dice que se fue porque recibió amenazas de muerte , Clarín (Buenos Aires) of November 28, 2006; AFP, Cancillería afirma que garantizó seguridad a Bielsa ( Memento of September 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), El Universo , November 30, 2006; Santiago Murray se negó a contestar 13 preguntas , El Comercio, November 16, 2006.
- ↑ Redacción Judicial, Hoy es el tercer llamado judicial para S. Murray ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), El Comercio, November 15, 2006.
- ↑ Die Linke wins in Ecuador ( Memento of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), Neue Zürcher Zeitung , November 27, 2006; Tribunal Supremo Electoral ( Memento of December 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), Resultados Parciales - Elecciones 2006 - Segunda Vuelta, accessed on December 4, 2006 at 8:55 pm (page now offline); OEA reconoce a Rafael Correa como presidente ( Memento of September 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), El Universo, November 28, 2006
- ↑ Marco Arauz, Los contenidos del triunfo de Correa ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , El Comercio, November 30, 2006; Patricio Cueva, “A la espectativa”, La Hora (national edition ), November 30, 2006.
- ^ Supreme Electoral Court of Ecuador
- ^ Institución . cne.gob.ec. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
Web links
- Election portal of the organization Participación Ciudadana (Spanish)
- Election portal of the daily newspaper "Diario HOY" (Spanish)
- Overview of all candidates and ballot papers (Spanish)
- Michael Langer, Ecuador in the 2006 election year: many candidates - little program, short reports from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation's international development cooperation , May 8, 2006 (PDF file; 239 kB).
- Helga Rothfritz, Presidential and parliamentary elections in Ecuador on October 15, 2006, country report by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation of October 16, 2006.