Lasso's victory in Ecuador opens a transition with urgent social demands

Ecuador woke up this Monday post-election without political hangover.

Like any beginning of the week.

Without triumphalism on the side of Guillermo Lasso and without controversy due to the defeat at the polls in that of Andrés Arauz.

The candidate sponsored by Rafael Correa assumed defeat -although he preferred the word stumbling-, congratulated Lasso and asked that there be no persecution.

Gone are those marathon electoral days where allusions to fraud or the need to make a recount lengthen the proclamation of official results for days.

The National Electoral Council will do the same on Thursday, but in the meantime, Ecuadorians have accommodated themselves to the news that the conservative politician of the CREO Movement and the Social Christian Party (PSC) will be their next ruler by obtaining 52.48% of the votes against 47.52% of Arauz.

It is a symptom of political maturity and a certain weariness before the controversy on the part of Ecuadorian society, according to María Paz Jervis, dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the SEK International University.

“Ecuador has been looking at itself in failure for decades, it was a habit to end an election with suspicion of fraud.

The fact that the results were on time yesterday has given security and confidence ”, reasons the also member of the Network of Politologists.

"That the results were known without wars, without offenses, gave peace," he reiterates.

"And, in any case, the president-elect would be wrong to be triumphalist when there is a percentage close to 50% of Ecuadorians who are related to correísmo."

For that half of the population and for the other half that, with a five-point advantage, gave him victory at the polls on his third attempt, Lasso will have to govern with an economic and social scenario with urgent demands and little room for maneuver as minority in the National Assembly.

Of the majority blocs, CREO is the one with the fewest seats.

Only 12. Unión por la Esperanza, his opponent's group, has 49. And there are three political movements that hold the key to governability: Pachakutik, with 27 legislators;

Democratic Left, with 18;

and the Social Christian Party, with 18 others. "Health and employment are the crux of the matter, but since it does not have a majority in the Assembly, the most immediate thing is to see the names of those who will form its cabinet," says Jervis.

That list of ministers and senior officials, he believes, will allow citizens to assess how much Guillermo Lasso has opened his sights towards groups and sectors of the Ecuadorian population that were not heard until the second round.

They are the ones who gave him their support this Sunday to stop the return of correísmo, represented by the candidacy of Andrés Arauz.

The economic and fiscal crisis that Ecuador was already dragging before the covid-19 pandemic, exacerbated by it, is the framework that will condition the first steps as president of the conservative politician.

Poverty rates have skyrocketed in the last year, employment has deteriorated and precarious, and the economy shows no signs of an agile recovery.

Health is also one of the main concerns of the citizens who went to vote together with corruption, this being the ingredient that conditions the inefficiency of the public health system.

All of them were on Guillermo Lasso's electoral program.

His promise of change will weigh on the narrow time frame since his inauguration on May 24 to solve urgent social demands.