Election Update
So today I munched on a delicious cow and pig foot soup. It´s actually this soup filled with cow´s and pig´s feet. It kind of tastes like jello. I was telling my buddy today that Ecaudor has reinvented the phrase ¨It kind of tastes like _____.¨ Know how in the states everything tastes like chicken? In Ecuador everything tastes like jello.
So the elections just passed by without any sort of craziness, which half suprised me. I thought some sort of riot was going to break out, but everyone kept their cool. The only weird thing that happened was the day before I saw a person get hit by a taxi while riding a bycicle. Quite an event for your first couple of steps in the morning.
As for the elections in Ecuador, starting Friday morning at midnight, no one is allowed to buy alcohol whatsoever. Each election demands a 72 hour sober period, which I think is kind of a cool idea, but also basically acknowledges that your citizens have a problem with binge drinking. The election in Ecuador also is completely mandatory. Each paper receives a paper vital for their citizenship every time they vote. This is also kind of a cool idea.
Since there were like 15 candidates their is a first round to narrow the candidates down to two, and then a second round to decide the winner.
So far the Banana tycoon, Noboa is in the lead. From the sense I get, all the poor people love Noboa because he is rich and gives everyone bananas. He also has the reputation of being a businessman rather than a politician which has its ups and downs. His competition is Correa, a socialist who attended the University of Illinois. His reputation is that of an economist rather than a businessman.
From what I can gather, Correa has plans to treat America similarly to how Cuba treats America, but he seems smart and motivatd to grab Ecuador by the bootstraps. Noboa has plans to do whatever anyone tells him to because he is rather slow witted, but due to his wealth he does have many business connections.
My guess? In the first round Correa, Noboa, Cynthia, and Roldos were the favorites. So anybody who didn´t know anything about elections voted for one of those four. Educated people split their vote among a whole wide range of the 15 candidates. Thus, I think that all of the people who split their vote between other candidates will end up voting for Correa, because he seems to be the intelligent vote, at least in the Sierras. On the coast people love Noboa, but because of his poor intellectual reputation, not many educated people will end up voting for him. Thus from what I can gather, Correa has a good chance to win, even though he did not receive the largest percentage in the first go around.
Implications? I am hardly an expert, but Correa, despite his repuations, does not seem to be the second coming of Hugo Chavez. Granted I could be wrong, but the guy did study in the US. Obviously money is a huge asset, but Ecaudor really needs someone with an eye toward the future in order to be prosperous. Right now Ecuador has a huge supply of oil, but is outsourcing it rather poorly. This is probably the biggest issue that both candidates need to address promptly during their candidacy.
Lucky enough for the people, they have plenty of time to decide. For some reason the second round of voting is at the end of Novemeber. No one has told me why, but that´s the way the cookie crumbles. It will certainly be interesting to see how the US factors in considering Correa´s reputation as being Anti-US, but asi es la vida.
On the whole, it certainly was an impressive democratic process. People, at least those who I spoke with, seemed generally interested in the election and its results.
So the elections just passed by without any sort of craziness, which half suprised me. I thought some sort of riot was going to break out, but everyone kept their cool. The only weird thing that happened was the day before I saw a person get hit by a taxi while riding a bycicle. Quite an event for your first couple of steps in the morning.
As for the elections in Ecuador, starting Friday morning at midnight, no one is allowed to buy alcohol whatsoever. Each election demands a 72 hour sober period, which I think is kind of a cool idea, but also basically acknowledges that your citizens have a problem with binge drinking. The election in Ecuador also is completely mandatory. Each paper receives a paper vital for their citizenship every time they vote. This is also kind of a cool idea.
Since there were like 15 candidates their is a first round to narrow the candidates down to two, and then a second round to decide the winner.
So far the Banana tycoon, Noboa is in the lead. From the sense I get, all the poor people love Noboa because he is rich and gives everyone bananas. He also has the reputation of being a businessman rather than a politician which has its ups and downs. His competition is Correa, a socialist who attended the University of Illinois. His reputation is that of an economist rather than a businessman.
From what I can gather, Correa has plans to treat America similarly to how Cuba treats America, but he seems smart and motivatd to grab Ecuador by the bootstraps. Noboa has plans to do whatever anyone tells him to because he is rather slow witted, but due to his wealth he does have many business connections.
My guess? In the first round Correa, Noboa, Cynthia, and Roldos were the favorites. So anybody who didn´t know anything about elections voted for one of those four. Educated people split their vote among a whole wide range of the 15 candidates. Thus, I think that all of the people who split their vote between other candidates will end up voting for Correa, because he seems to be the intelligent vote, at least in the Sierras. On the coast people love Noboa, but because of his poor intellectual reputation, not many educated people will end up voting for him. Thus from what I can gather, Correa has a good chance to win, even though he did not receive the largest percentage in the first go around.
Implications? I am hardly an expert, but Correa, despite his repuations, does not seem to be the second coming of Hugo Chavez. Granted I could be wrong, but the guy did study in the US. Obviously money is a huge asset, but Ecaudor really needs someone with an eye toward the future in order to be prosperous. Right now Ecuador has a huge supply of oil, but is outsourcing it rather poorly. This is probably the biggest issue that both candidates need to address promptly during their candidacy.
Lucky enough for the people, they have plenty of time to decide. For some reason the second round of voting is at the end of Novemeber. No one has told me why, but that´s the way the cookie crumbles. It will certainly be interesting to see how the US factors in considering Correa´s reputation as being Anti-US, but asi es la vida.
On the whole, it certainly was an impressive democratic process. People, at least those who I spoke with, seemed generally interested in the election and its results.
posted by ecuadortraveler at 5:06 PM
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