Foreign Digest: Ecuador and Venezuela

The Leftist Presidential Candidate Was Defeated in the Ecuadorian Elections: A centrist businessman and former Member of Parliament won the presidential elections in Ecuador a week ago, versus a leftist candidate. The election is a rejection of the leftist candidate’s mentor, a former President convicted of corruption who had continued to wield influence on Ecuador’s politics. An ally of the Venezuelan Socialists, the former President had supported the Marxist narco-terrorists in Columbia that were backed by Venezuela. The current President is also a member of the liberal party, but not as far to the left as his predecessor. The leftist candidate had promised to bring back her mentor’s welfare spending, but the businessman promised to maintain the free market. Venezuelan Deal Between the Socialist Dictatorship and the Opposition: A deal has been reached between the Socialist dictatorship in Venezuela and the democratic opposition, mediated by the United States. The bans by the regime on opposition candidates would be lifted and there would be moderately free and fair elections that meet international standards by late 2024, in exchange for the loosening of American economic sanctions for signing the deal and more sanctions relief if Venezuela implements the deal. There remains, however, distrust that the Socialist regime, which has ruled since 2000 after usurping representative governance, would honor its commitments in the vaguely worded deal, as it has a poor track record on keeping promises, as it does on respecting human rights. Indeed, no state media coverage was allowed for today’s opposition primary elections. As I had posted about, the opposition won a veto-proof two-thirds majority in the last elections of the national assembly six years ago, but the Socialists barred some delegates from taking their seats to keep their totals under two-thirds and then invoked a constitutional provision to appoint a different body as a national legislature, effectively eliminating the power of that chosen by the Venezuelan people. The assembly leader then invoked a different constitutional provision to declare himself President, which the U.S. and many Latin American and Western States recognized, but his term has since expired, necessitating new elections.