We interview Ramon Mendez Rivas, political scientist, who’ll give his opinion on the accusations that presidential candidate Luisa González made about the circumstances surrounding the election day. teleSUR
00:00And we're continuing these topics. With us is Ramon Mendez. He's a politics and scientist and will be with us on this occasion for analyzing what's going on in these presidential elections in Ecuador.
00:17Welcome, Ramon. Can you hear me? Do you hear me well?
00:21Yes, I hear you well.
00:22Thank you very much. Well, as we heard, Luisa, I know we've been watching all through the days. Now let's start.
00:32Based on your opinion, how is the democracy in Ecuador actually based on the denunciations that Luisa Gonzalez has made?
00:41Correct. I think it's beyond opinion at this point. It is evident for both Ecuadorian and international observatories that democracy has been hindered.
00:51That is unquestionable at the moment. We just saw a couple of days ago, actually last night, the CENED, which is the national overlooker of the oversight of the elections, being barquired.
01:04We see the presence of the military be a little more, well, a little bit stronger than other times.
01:10We've seen that from the judiciary, the legislative, and of course the executive, the rules have not been kept.
01:17And they've been doing everything that they want to just in order to maintain power.
01:21We have seen that President Nouveau, at the same time that he is a candidate, is doing both without actually giving up the power to their vice president, which is constitutionally mandated.
01:32So we've seen that democracy has been hindered and it has been hurt.
01:35And this is something that needs to be, needs to be known in the world and that other countries need to be aware of, not only aware of, but actually fighting to do something about it.
01:47And in base on it, also a state of exception was announced just hours before the presidential elections.
01:55And Luisa has announced this fact.
01:58What can you tell us about her denunciation of this state of exception?
02:04Well, the state of exception has been a tool that President Nouveau has been using constantly.
02:09It's getting old at this point, right?
02:11Yet we know that this is all done in order to make people not want to go and vote.
02:17We've seen the reports of over 18 polling sites being changed at the last minute.
02:21And we've seen that here, where I'm currently at in New York, where the polling sites have been changing from election to election, even from the first round to the second round, the polling sites haven't changed.
02:32So we continue to see how many voters here, the diaspora, as well as in Ecuador, go to the regular polling sites just to find out that their polling site is somewhere else now, miles away, if not more.
02:44So we've been seeing this happening time and time again.
02:48Again, state of exception or not, these things continue to happen.
02:54Yeah, and also earlier, Gonzalez denounced that she received intelligence reports about attempts to sort of electral ballots that marks in favor of her candidacy.
03:07Based on it, what can you tell us?
03:10Well, we've seen that there are threats not only on her, but on other people and other politicians from the citizens' revolution.
03:17We know that these groups have been allied in the past, if not up until this day, with the right-wing groups in Ecuador.
03:25They have been their strong arm.
03:27They have been their political arm.
03:29They have been their armed arm, if you will, to do these type of threats.
03:33And just to remove the military protection that she had, it's just another sign of how much or how little, rather, they care about democracy and ensuring that it's a fair game for all.
03:48Well, thank you, Ramon, for the information.
03:51It was really fruitful for us and our audience, too.
