“Today, this attack is being unleashed with force against the Ecuadorian people, through a flawed and fraudulently conducted electoral process, as has been widely denounced,” the organization said in a statement, according to which the National Electoral Council violated fundamental norms by authorizing President Daniel Noboa as a candidate despite his failure to resign from office within the stipulated legal period.
According to the anti-fascists, even more serious was Noboa’s declaration of a state of emergency, which facilitated excessive militarization, especially in the regions where his opponent, Luisa González, won a significant majority in the first round, with an emphasis on the most populated cities: “During the elections, the state of emergency was used as a mechanism for total control of the streets, allowing the right and Noboa himself to intimidate voters, pressure electoral authorities, and sow fear, in clear violation of basic democratic guarantees.”
According to the declaration, Ecuador’s institutions are designed outward, with a democratic façade for the international community. In contrast, internally, “control is exercised by military, police, paramilitary, and mercenary forces, in collusion with narcoterrorism (…), which is controlled by the State through both legal and illegal means.”
The antifascists maintain that, as if that were not enough, on April 5th, Noboa ordered a joint military operation in Guayaquil, in which the Armed Forces participated alongside mercenaries led by Erik Prince, founder of the US private military company Blackwater, which, according to the statement, is infamous for its war crimes in Iraq and its history of failures, fraud, and covert operations.
“The presence of [U.S.] mercenaries in the Ecuadorian electoral process confirms that this is no longer a formal democracy, but rather a repressive and privatized machinery at the service of capital and imperial geopolitics,” the Bolivian activists emphasize.
“From the Antifascist International – Bolivia Chapter, we express our strongest support for the struggles of the Ecuadorian people and of their popular, progressive, and truly democratic organizations,” the statement confirms.
“This occurs amid an alarming increase in missing and murdered persons, under a regime that legitimizes violence in the name of order and threatens to institutionalize fascism as a model of governance,” the statement concludes.
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