Many illustrious personalities from the Latin American political, social and economic panorama gathered in Rome from 22 to 26 May. They did so within the framework of the “International Meeting of Eco-Educational Cities” promoted by the Latin American Development Bank – CAF (which has decided to become the region’s Green Bank) and the Scholas Occurrentes Foundation, created by Pope francesco on August 13, 2013. More than 50 Latin American local government authorities were invited to this “important” event to foster dialogue and the exchange of important information on the basis of a regional network of collaboration aimed at strengthening and promoting the essential principles of the encyclical Laudato Si’promoted by Pope Francis and aimed at the care and conservation of the “Common Home”.
Among the authorities taking part in the meeting were political offices, representatives of multilateral bodies, the clergy, the academy and also the Guatemalan Rigoberta MenchuNobel Peace Prize in 1992. In this group of people we find one in particular who is little known to the Italian public but who could soon take on a great role at the national level (in Ecuador) and regional. I’m talking about Ecuadorian Paola Verenice Pabon Caranquiborn in 1978 and current Prefect of the province of Pichincha, district of the capital of the South American country, Quito. Paola Pabon it is a long-standing policy and today his quotations for the presidency of the country, after what happened to the government of Guillermo Lasso, are on the rise. We recall that Lasso, the outgoing president, signed executive decree 741 on 17 May which gives the green light to the “muerte cruzada”: that is, the president resigns, dissolves the chambers, paves the way for the celebration of new elections to renew the Executive and the Legislative.
Pabón is one of the strongest representatives of correismthat political current that is inspired by Rafael Correa (former Ecuadorian president currently in exile in Belgium) and who was defeated in April 2021 in the run-off for the presidency by Lasso himself (Correism on that occasion was represented by Andrés Arauz) but who in the territorial elections of this beginning of 2023 ha swept up political opponents. In fact, last February the Movimiento Revolución Ciudadana (RC), the name under which correismo meets today, overwhelmed the political contest, winning 9 of the 23 prefectures at stake, including the two most populated provinces in the country: Guayas, where the president of the movement Marcela Aguiñaga was elected, and Pichincha, where Paola Pabón was re-elected for the second time. Correismo also won the elections in the two main cities of Ecuador, namely Quito with Pabel Muñoz and Guayaquil with Aquiles Álvarez, putting an end in Guayaquil to the monopoly of the Christian Social Party which lasted more than 30 years.
The Prefect of Pichincha is therefore one of the most popular faces in a healthy political movement, with great popular support and which aims to return as a protagonist at the helm of the country. In the past Pabón had discrepancies with Correa and has also suffered judicial sentences (71 days in prison for the crime of rebellion in the context of the 2019 protests, which according to some readings are part of a Lawfare increasingly widespread in the region) but today his relations with the former president of the Revolución Ciudadana are excellentas demonstrated by this video interview at the end of 2022.
The early elections that will be held on 20 August in Ecuador will have to elect a president and 137 deputies for what remains of the legislature, or about 1 and a half years, until 2025. There are 17 parties registered in the CNE (National Electoral Council) which they will only have until 7 June to hold the internal primaries and until 10 June to present the official candidacies. Among those already formalized, the indigenous leader stands out Yaku Perez (which was an electoral surprise in 2021 just a few votes from the ballot) who presents himself as the leader of his movement we are water and with the support of Unidad Popular and Democracia Sí. In addition to Pérez we find Jan Topic which counts with the support of the Partido Social Cristiano (PSC) and which is reported by the local press as an impresario of the security department who fought in Ukraine and Syria and which is the bearer of the “Bukele doctrine” in Salvador. To these names are added Leonidas Iza (president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities – CONAIE and leader of the protests of June 2022 against the policies of Lasso), the entrepreneur Daniel Noboa and the well-known politician Fernando Villavicencio, bitter enemy of Correism.
In this scenario, the party belonging to Correa has not yet announced any candidacy, because it remains to be understood who will have to contend for the Presidency for what remains of the legislature, and possibly take over the leadership of the country in a very chaotic situation, both from the social, economic and internal security view. For her part Pabón, a lawyer originally from Ibarra who took her first steps in politics in 1999 with the Democratic Left (she would later join Correa in 2006), continues to consolidate her position having been recently elected (May 29) as president of CONGOPE: the Consortium of Autonomous Governments Provincials of Ecuador.
A rise of consensus and of legitimacy which could very soon lead her to Carandolet, the presidential palace in the historic center of Quito, a few blocks from where she works today, namely the Provincial Government Tower of Pichincha. So remember this name, Paola Pabón.