My late father taught me to follow Latin American elections on La Voz de America, the Spanish edition of Voice of America. He would tune in the short wave radio and we would hear reports from correspondents in whatever country was voting. We listened to a few over the years, such as the historic 1970 election from Chile when a three-way race gave Salvador Allende a controversial plurality victory. In Cuba, we heard the Kennedy funeral that way.
On Sunday, Ecuador will hold a presidential election. So far, the polls are too close the call. The candidates represent the left and right, a classic battle of ideas.
The left, under President Correa, has lost steam because of an economic slowdown. Correa cannot run for re-election, so Lenin Moreno is representing his side. A leftist with the first name of Lenin?
Sunday’s election will mean a great deal for that fellow Assange whom we’ve seen in our news report lately. His future, or safe haven, is very much on the line, as we see in this report:
There’s more at stake in Ecuador’s presidential election on Sunday than whether the leftist legacy of outgoing President Rafael Correa will be extended with a victory by his former vice president.
If pro-business candidate Guillermo Lasso upsets former Vice President Lenin Moreno, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy for five years, is likely to lose his safe haven.
Again, the polls are too close to call, but the left is getting hysterical, a sign that maybe they know something the pollsters don’t. For example, leftist partisans disrupted a soccer game Lasso was attending and attacked him and his family as they left the stadium (via Fausta’s Blog).
So I will tune in to La Voz de America and get some reports. We probably won’t have final results for a day or two, but Mr. Assange will be very interested, indeed. He may be looking for a new residence soon.
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