There are only two rational explanations for the outcome of Presidential elections in Ecuador on April 11, ostensibly won by multimillionaire banker Guillermo Lasso. Either the Ecuadorean people are massively masochistic, or the election was stolen following the pattern recently tested in the paragon of political virtue and rule of law to Ecuador’s north. As ancient logicians would say, tertium non datur.

The protagonists of these elections were the putative winner Lasso, with oligarchic credentials that would hardly recommend him as a popular favourite in an economically troubled and socially and racially divided country. The Ecuadorean people, it should be recalled, were not so long ago cruelly hoodwinked by the outgoing President Lenin Moreno, who ran on a social democratic platform only to begin implementing the most extreme and economically damaging neoliberal policies once elected. It was a brazen flip-flop reminiscent of the fraud perpetrated on Argentina by Carlos Menem in the 1990s. That the people of Ecuador, having another option, should have made an informed choice for another five years of the same poison, in the foolish expectation that it would lead to an improvement of their condition, is an insult to their collective intelligence and beyond conceivable.

The other and much healthier option was, of course, economist Andrés Arauz, political ally of populist former president Rafael Correa, whose legacy first Moreno and now Lasso have the task of nullifying in order to make Ecuador safe for international corporations. Just as Arauz led Lasso in the first electoral round by a hefty advantage, on the eve of the election, Arauz was also set to win by a comfortable margin. Then, on election day, something happened. Either the electorate experienced a massive and inexplicable change of mind or some very fishy things occurred in the vote-counting process.

It is extremely unlikely that Lasso won over any voters because on the eve of the polling they decided to read his wishy-washy electoral platform. The principal planks of the Plan Lasso consist of platitudes and nebulosities: “Establish a full democracy; promote an economy of free and prosperous citizens; and empower citizens to freely choose the means to achieve their self-realization.” Yes, that is the psychobabble nonsense on which the supposedly winning candidate in Ecuador ran. If you know Spanish, click on the hyperlink and read it for yourself.

While French analyst Eric Toussaint makes good and realistic points concerning the political weaknesses of the Corréist legacy, of which Andrés Arauz was the anointed champion, his arguments are insufficient to explain the sudden tilt of hundreds of thousands of votes to an exponent of international corporate capital in a country economically broken by precisely the policies that as President Lasso will aggressively continue to pursue, whatever soothing nonsense might be written in his official programme.

While Paul Antonopoulos correctly observes that the Lasso government will not control Ecuador’s legislature (at least not until that situation is “fixed” in the following National Assembly elections) with the election of a “millionaire banker,” as Bloomberg jubilantly put it, even in the near term two cardinal objectives will have been achieved. Ecuador will continue to function, as it has under Moreno, as one of the imperial beachheads in South America. Furthermore, the Lasso regime can be relied upon to continue Moreno’s cosy relationship with IMF by piling more debt to “pay” previously contracted debt, making the entire country ready to be sold off, lock, stock, and barrel, for pennies on the dollar, in the Great Reset that is in the works.

As another of Ecuador’s jubilant “well-wishers,” the New York Times, put it, in his victory speech Lasso “said, ‘we will take on the challenge of changing the destiny of our fatherland. We will work tirelessly.’ Mr. Lasso promised to fulfill the promises made to Indigenous groups, environmentalist activists and women’s right organizations.”

But needless to say that is all fluff and nothing of the sort will ever happen. In particular, no change in Ecuador’s destiny is envisioned or will be permitted, as evidenced by the installation of banking cartel’s poodle Guillermo Lasso in the Presidency. The plan is for the mineral rich Latin American country to be brought back into the imperialist fold, to be ravaged by international corporate interests with the full acquiescence of its neo-colonial government.

Yes, whenever a favourable election outcome seems problematic, the selection of the right vote counting machine will be sure to fix it.

It is not just in the United States that the results of supposedly democratic, “free and fair” elections should raise eyebrows. On Sunday, conservative businessman Gullermo Lasso swept to an apparently clear 5 percent victory margin in tropical Ecuador winning more than half (52.5 percent) of the popular vote over leftist candidate Andrés Arauz. Now he is looking forward to taking office and power in Quito on May 24.

But Lasso must now navigate political clouds and conflicts ahead. The Correismo bloc, named after former popular, reelected former President Rafael Correa who ran the country for a decade from 2007 to 2017, still remains powerful in Congress. And questions linger and are likely to grow over Lasso’s victory, one of the most dramatic ‘come-from-behind’ upsets in the political history of any country.

For in the first round of voting on February 7, Lasso only attracted a derisory 19 percent of the vote: Arauz, the would-be successor and political heir to Correa, had a commanding lead with 32 percent. Even Lasso and third-place candidate Yaku Perez a “Green” environmentalist-focused lawyer who claimed to be a “progressive” but who was suspiciously weak on serious economic issues, together only attracted 38 percent in all.

Lasso therefore leaped from 19 percent to 52 percent in a single bound in the April 11 vote, making him the political Superman of Ecuador politics (and he has never shown any particular charisma or other political superpowers). Or he was the beneficiary of some very determined skullduggery?

For very powerful interests operating in Ecuador were horrified at the thought of Aruaz winning. He had made clear he was determined to renegotiate a crippling $6.5 billion debt repayment agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which Lasso will now certainly honor. Arauz had also made plain he wanted to challenge previous U.S. untrammeled control of a key strategic air base in the Galapagos Islands thousands of miles out in the Pacific Ocean. U.S. occupation of that base will now continue untroubled.

Most of all, Aruaz offered the real prospect of cracking down at last on the mighty Colombian drug cartels and their associates in Peru: the two countries that produce the largest output of raw material for cocaine in the world. That is not going to happen now either.

And possibly even more alarming for Washington policymakers, Arauz remained determined to hold Washington’s favorite, previous President Lenín Moreno, a hard right reactionary despite his colorful first name, as legally responsible for his handling of the little Ecuador’s disastrous ravaging by the coronavirus pandemic.

This last issue has enormous hemispheric repercussions ranging far beyond Ecuador. For if Arauz had won, he would have launched his investigation into Moreno’s catastrophic coronavirus response record before him. And that would have established a precedent that could have led to Donald Trump’s beloved President Jair Bolsonaro being held equally responsible for the coronavirus response catastrophe in giant Brazil with its population of more than 200 million people.

Pressure is already building on Bolsonaro: On April 8, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice ordered the country’s Senate to investigate the Bolsonaro government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. The last thing Bolsonaro needed was for a new idealistic social democratic reform president in the same hemisphere to set a precedent for probes into his own incompetent and catastrophic record in failing to deal with the pandemic.

U.S. hostility and paranoia have doomed countless social democratic reformers across the Western Hemisphere over the past 110 years, Arauz has been at pains to reassure IMF officials and bankers alike. While still determined to renegotiate Ecuador’s debt burden, he told Agence France-Presse in an interview the week before the election. We are not going to declare a moratorium against the IMF.”

However, Arauz remained determined to ease the massive burden that the Western financial institutions have imposed upon the long suffering people of his country. His goal for a renegotiated agreement with the IMF was to slow down the slashes in public spending that the body had demanded. He also wants to keep U.S. dollars in Ecuador to enhance economic activities.

In dealing with the drug trade too, Arauz remains determined to protect his overwhelmingly impoverished people sandwiched as they are between the world’s two biggest cocaine producers – Colombia and Peru.

“We cannot forget that the United States is the [main] consumer country of drugs in the region and on the planet,” Arauz told AFP. “Given that, we aim to adjust the cooperation conditions. There must be cooperation with the United States, Mexico, the Central American countries and our neighbors.”

But now that is not going to happen: As Wayne Madsen rightly predicted in these columns, the top officials of the Biden administration will courteously applaud Lasso’s victory. The toothless, senile old watchdogs of the U.S. Mainstream Media will remain silent and obedient on events in Ecuador. Business as usual will continue.

Guillermo Lasso, former banker and Coca Cola Ecuadorian director, surprisingly won the April 11 run-off election over socialistic candidate Andres Arauz, 52.5% to 47.5%.

Arauz had led the pack of 16 presidential candidates during the first round, on February 7, with 32.7% of the vote over Lasso’s 19.74%. Arauz was Union of Hope (UNES) candidate, a new party that former President Rafael Correa (2007-17) and Arauz had started.

This was Lasso’s third time running on the Creating Opportunities (CREO) presidential ticket. He came in second place against Correa in 2013 and again against Lenin Moreno in 2017. During this election, CREO combined with the traditional conservative Social Christian Party (PSC).

“This is a historic day, a day in which all Ecuadoreans have decided their future and expressed with their vote the need for change… Democracy has triumphed,” Lasso told supporters as the results came in. “Ecuadoreans, all of you… have chosen a new path…a very different path from the one Ecuador has followed for the past 14 years.”

Lasso will take the presidential reins on May 24. The National Electoral Council presented the results last night after 98 percent of the votes had been officially counted. A few minutes earlier, the leftist politician publicly congratulated the president-elect. Arauz made no mention of any fraud in the voting process even though polls had indicated he would win the race with a small margin.

Lasso gained a majority, in part, because of promises he made to improve the failed economy under Moreno’s administration by increasing foreign investments, cutting taxes for businesses while raising the minimum wage, and a vow to vaccinate nine million citizens against Covid-19 during his first 100 days in office.

Lasso used his Coca Cola advertising knowledge about the use of “image politics” to capture unsuspecting voters. The 65 year-old campaigned in trendy red trainers, pink three-quarter-length trousers and white jacket. He posts on social media, such as TikTok. His opponent, the 36 year-old Arauz, dressed more like a businessman or economist, which is his work.

Lasso’s image politics apparently appealed to many young voters and to many sexual minorities. Among his supporters are self-declared anarcho-ecologists, including an indigenous leader, Yaku Pérez, who is backed by the U.S. government financially and politically. When Pérez did not get into the run-off, coming in third place, he called upon his supporters to vote blank, which 1.6 million did. (For background, see, U.S.-Backed Ecuador Government Tries Stopping Socialist Electoral Victory — Strategic Culture (strategic-culture.org)

For this writer, Lasso’s victory came as a surprise, a most disappointing one especially for the peoples of Latin America, and for all who struggle for a world without the greed, war violence, and planet pollution that capitalism breeds.