Evidence of the crisis in Ecuador is everywhere: shuttered restaurants, soaring oxygen tank prices, and countless “for sale” and “for rent” signs hanging from buildings.
The South American country’s beleaguered economy and the COVID-19 pandemic are pushing millions to despair.
“There used to be a restaurant in my retail space, but the country’s crisis caused the tenants to leave, and right now, few people have money to eat out every day,” said Fausto Viteri, who is trying to lease or sell his commercial property in a once-vibrant neighborhood in the Ecuadoran capital Quito.
“Very few of those who come by dare to enter the businesses that have survived around here,” he said.
How soon Viteri and fellow landlords start making money off their properties again might well depend on who gets elected Ecuadoran president today.
The country’s democratic institutions came under stress during Rafael Correa’s 10-year presidency, which ended in 2017, and the policies enacted by his successor, Lenin Moreno, will likely dictate how quickly the oil-rich country climbs out of the crisis.
More than a dozen candidates have entered the presidential race, making a runoff election on April 11 virtually certain.
Two of them have in the past few months led the polls, but most have little to no name recognition at the national level and are taking advantage of Ecuador’s publicly funded election system to run their campaigns.
One of the two main contenders is former Ecuadorean minister of knowledge and human talent Andres Arauz, who was picked by Correa — still a powerful political force in the country despite his conviction on corruption charges.
Arauz plans to make the wealthy pay more taxes, and strengthen consumer protection mechanisms, public banking, and local credit and savings organizations.
He has said he would not comply with agreements with the IMF.
The other leading candidate is former Ecuadoran superminister of economy Guillermo Lasso, who favors free market policies and Ecuador’s rapprochement with international organizations.
He has promised to create more jobs and attract international banks. He also wants to boost the oil, mining and energy sectors through the participation of private entities to replace state financing.
In a distant third place in the polls comes Andean Coordination of Indigenous Organizations president Yaku Perez.
The nation of about 17.4 million people on South America’s west coast began experiencing an economic slowdown largely driven by the drop in oil prices in 2015.
“Ecuador is one of the most unstable countries in Latin America. There’s a recession, deep political instability, [and] in October 2019, there was a massive indigenous uprising,” said Grace Jaramillo, an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia.
“It’s a country at a crossroads. There’s deep political polarization that has plagued the country since the end of the Rafael Correa administration,” she said. “Ever since, the political parties have been divided between whoever supports Correa — they call it ‘Correismo’ — and whoever supports a transition that leads to something different, more plural, less authoritarian.”
Correa became president in 2007. He was an ally of former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, was accused of increasing authoritarianism while in office and declared Ecuador would default on more than US$3 billion worth of bonds. He managed to slash the price of the outstanding bonds, but by the end of his tenure, the country was already in a recession.
Moreno, who has said that he was uninterested in seeking re-election, was Correa’s vice president. In April last year, Correa was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison for his role in an elaborate scheme that demanded millions of US dollars from businesspeople in exchange for the contracts of large infrastructure projects from 2012 to 2016.
The Ecuadoran authorities have said that the money obtained by Correa and other officials during his administration was used to finance political campaigns and party events.
Jaramillo said that the top two challenges for Ecuador’s next president go hand in hand: A proper COVID-19 vaccination campaign of the majority of the population would be necessary to start the country’s economic recovery.
The pandemic last year paralyzed 70 percent of the country’s firms and left 600,000 Ecuadorans unemployed, bringing the country’s unemployment rate to almost 68 percent.
Ecuador two decades ago adopted the US dollar as its currency, when it faced the threat of hyperinflation and a crisis that forced the closure of more than half the country’s 42 banks.
The new president would have to address an economy that has contracted about 10 to 12 percent, a debt that is equivalent to about 60 percent of GDP, and a poverty rate of about 35 percent.
Against all odds, government officials in August last year reached a successful agreement to restructure US$17.4 billion of the country’s external debt after obtaining a financial program with the IMF for US$6.5 billion.
“It is crucial for the next government to maintain the same trend of betting on economic growth and debt control, and that it does not lean toward populist measures that translate into expansive spending that pushes the country back towards a more significant fiscal gap, increasing the risk of default and limiting access to international credit,” analysts with Torino Economics wrote in a note to investors last month.
As of yesterday, the country had recorded more than 255,000 cases and more than 14,900 deaths of COVID-19, Johns Hopkins University data showed.
It began vaccinating healthcare workers on Jan. 21, but for small business owners, the uncertainties created by the pandemic and the upcoming elections cannot end soon enough.
“In recent years, we have been surviving, and since last year, fighting not to disappear,” said Mauricio Bermeo, who owns a small steel products company.
“Now with the elections, we are only facing despair, because the country’s economy is getting worse and worse. There is no work, there is no money, and the candidates do not talk about how they are going to solve these problems,” he added.
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