Why the triumph of banker Guillermo Lasso is bad news for the Government

Natasha Niebieskikwiat

04/12/2021 10:06

• Clarín.com

• Politics

Updated 04/12/2021 11:37 AM

In the hours before the second electoral round that took place this Sunday in Ecuador, international analysts highlighted the importance of these presidential elections in Latin America: they were the

geopolitical barometer after the left turn of Argentina and Bolivia. 

Partly because of this, the

triumph of the banker Guillermo Lasso

in Ecuador constitutes bad news for the governments of Alberto Fernández and Cristina Kirchner, and also for the territorial ambition of La Cámpora.

Both the president and vice president, and the head of the increasingly powerful Kirchnerist organization, Deputy Máximo Kirchner,

received in Buenos Aires with hugs the correista candidate Andrés Arauz

, whose project was shipwrecked on Sunday.

In social networks there was a cataract of messages for Lasso from Latin Americans from Latin America.

He was greeted by, among others, Luis Lacalle Pou, from Uruguay;

Sebastián Piñera, from Chile;

and Iván Duque, from Colombia.

In Argentina, former President Mauricio Macri tweeted a congratulation and spoke by phone with the winner, and Clarín knows that the head of the City government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, also called him.

Guillermo Lasso celebrates his victory in the Ecuador ballot.

Photo Bloomberg.

Around noon, this Monday official sources reported that Alberto F. sent a letter to the elected Lasso.

A formal congratulation, they pointed out.

Alberto F. had

retweeted a message from Brazilian Luis Inacio Lula da Silva

about his judicial affairs, and another tweet

lamenting the death of journalist Mauro Viale

.

There was also no message from the Foreign Ministry or from Minister Felipe Solá.

Arauz came to Argentina last November, in the middle of the electoral campaign, and Alberto F. was so effusive with him that he

even promised him more than 4 million of the Russian Sputnik V vaccines,

which are not even available in Argentina.

"We recovered democracy in Bolivia with a huge effort from Evo (Morales) and Lucho (Arce) and now we hope to have another progressive government in Ecuador," Fernández tweeted days before the first electoral round in Ecuador.

It was in February and then Arauz won by 32 percent of the vote.

Lasso came in second place after a tough fight against the indigenous and anti-correista Yaku Pérez, who claimed to have won.

Finally, the banker prevailed by more than 52% of the votes, in the third electoral race that he passed. 

For the Government, a triumph of Rafael Correa's dolphin, a personal friend of the current vice president, was seen as the

consolidation of the project, which they want to continue in Chile this year and in Brazil in the presidential elections of 2022

.

This has been stated by President Fernández after the victory of Luis Arce in Bolivia, where the Movement for Socialism of Evo Morales also lost on Sunday in elections for four governorships.

Cristina Kirchner, along with Andrés Aráuz Galarza, Correa's candidate and who was defeated this Sunday in Ecuadro.

In an unusual foreign policy decision, the

Foreign Ministry kept the embassy in Ecuador without a chief

.

There is no representative there since the end of the government of Mauricio Macri.

Relations between Alberto Fernández and the outgoing president Lenin Moreno

deteriorated over the months

.

And due to ideological differences such as those with Iván Duque in Colombia, they did not send an ambassador.

They only did it in Bogotá at the beginning of the year.

Nor had they sent an ambassador to Bolivia during the provisional government of Jeanine Añez, whom they did not recognize.  

In March, Moreno called for consultations with his ambassador in Buenos Aires, Juan José Vásconez,

to protest against the following television statement by Alberto Fernández:

 “I may have differences with Cristina.

I have them.

We have different views on some things, but here I arrived with Cristina and from here I am leaving with Cristina ”.

He was referring to the fight between Rafael Correa and Moreno, who was his vice and then his enemy. 

Ecuador indicated then that it did not accept "insulting comparisons with the president."

They were also upset because

Argentines have given political refuge to former police officers and a former Correa minister

, who according to Alberto Fernández suffers the so-called regional "lawfare" - judicial persecution for political purposes - as does his vice.

The Moreno government issued

several protests against the Argentine government

.

In December he had done it against Cristina Kirchner herself.