Rafael Correa fails to enter the list of candidates for the Ecuador elections in time

Rafael Correa, during an interview with EL PAÍS in 2019.Héctor Guerrero

“Yesterday concluded the stage of acceptance of pre-candidacies before the National Electoral Council.

Fifteen pairs and a presidential candidate complied with this requirement in an express, non-delegable and highly personal way ”.

José Cabrera, one of the five members of the electoral authority, settled like this, supported by the literality of the norm but without specific allusions, the controversy over the participation of Rafael Correa in the next elections in Ecuador.

There are officially fifteen pairs -of president and vice-president- and a presidential candidate who completed the procedures until midnight on Wednesday to continue in the race for Carondelet next year.

But the ex-president is not on the list.

That lone "presidential candidate" mentioned by the electoral councilor is Andrés Arauz, Correa's running mate.

The CNE has only included him among the official candidates, from which it follows that Rafael Correa did not comply in time with the requirements of the Ecuadorian electoral regulations.

The former Ecuadorian president, like the rest of the applicants, had until Wednesday to sign the act that formalized his participation and had to do it personally and in person, in Ecuadorian territory, before a delegate from the National Electoral Council.

But he did so with an electronic signature, handing over a power of attorney to his sister Pierina and connected by videoconference through a tablet, despite the fact that the CNE had already clarified the conditions required by the electoral regulations in advance.

"The proclamation and acceptance of pre-candidacies of popular nomination is express, non-delegable and very personal", collects the norm in its second transitory provision.

But if Correa had returned to comply with the electoral process, the former president would have risked being detained by the authorities, since he is under a prison order and an eight-year sentence for the Bribery case.

This criminal process is pending to exhaust judicial remedies this Thursday before declaring the sentence as enforceable and, therefore, to know whether or not the Latin American politician is permanently disqualified from participating in the elections for the duration of the sentence.

At midnight on Wednesday, finally, the term ran out without Correa physically appearing and without his political organization opting to propose another name for the vice presidency.

Hence, the electoral option of the Democratic Center, an acronym that covers the correista cadres, only has one candidate instead of a complete binomial.

The ex-president, resident in Belgium since 2017 after handing over the presidential sash to Lenín Moreno, protested, also virtually, with an active campaign on social networks from his account and that of Unión por la Esperanza (UNES), the alliance of political organizations formed for the 2021 elections. "Let's prevent democracy from being stolen," he published at four in the afternoon on Wednesday, still with room to present an alternative to vice president, accompanying a message from the UNES account in which they defended that it had completed the procedure.

“Rafael Correa Delgado, aspiring to the Vice Presidency of Ecuador, fulfilled the acceptance of his candidacy.

More than 170 thousand people saw the transmission where they electronically signed the acceptance form ”.

As happened to Correa, two other applicants who are immersed in legal proceedings, were left out of the call for not signing the minutes in person.

One is Pablo Romero, former director of the intelligence services in the correista government who is in prison for the kidnapping of an opponent in a process that is also trying Rafael Correa and who, in his case, cannot advance due to his absence.

The other is Abdalá Bucaram, another former president who is under house arrest for his involvement in alleged hospital corruption.

Anticipating the electoral setback, the Correísmo option has already announced that they will exhaust all the avenues for the former president to participate in the 2021 elections. “We have three plans: plan a, Rafael Correa Delgado;

plan b, Rafael Correa Delgado, with electronic signature;

and plan c, Rafael Correa Delgado in all the legal instances that follow in the contentious electoral tribunal, in the national electoral council, in the courts and even at the international level ”, defended Arauz, the number one of the binomial that now remains in the air.