National sovereignty is an undervalued asset in today’s world, especially in the international media, where the views of Washington and its allies largely prevail. This is true with regard to economic as well as political issues, and its consequences can be quite heavy in a region like Latin America, long regarded by US officials as their “back yard.”
The election in Ecuador is being watched as well as contested by forces that have opposing views on this question.
Ecuador presented its commitment to fighting against tax havens at the United Nations by underscoring how tax dodging by the elite profoundly affects the economy of the majority of the world’s population.
Ecuadorean Foreign Affairs Minister Guillaume Long introduced a plan to "advance together in a global agenda for fiscal justice" at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on March13.
"Tax revenues are the most predictable, stable and important source of resources available to states to finance the protection of human rights," said Long.
Ecuador will return to the polls on April 2 after a first round presidential vote failed to deliver a decisive victory for Lenin Moreno, the candidate seeking to continue outgoing President Rafael Correa’s pro-poor “Citizens’ Revolution”.
Moreno now faces the challenge of ensuring Ecuador does not join the list of countries in the region where the left has recently lost at the ballot box.
With Ecuador’s presidential elections heading into a second round on April 2, the Coordination of Social Movements, Communities and Nationalities, made up of about 1200 groups nationwide, will support leftist candidate Lenin Moreno, Ecuador's state media outlet El Telegrafo reported.
Moreno fell just short of the 40% and 10 point lead needed for an outright win in the first round on February 19, winning 39.36% of the vote of more than 13 million voters. Right-wing banker Guillermo Lasso came in second place with 28.09%.
Ecuador’s National Institute of Statistics and Censuses reported in January that the country's multidimensional poverty rate dropped 16.5% between 2009 and 2015, translating into 1.9 million Ecuadorians who no longer live in poverty.
“Socioeconomic poverty will be fundamentally solved through changes in the relations of power … through political processes,” Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said.
US meddling in Ecuador's politics is likely to continue, especially if left-wing candidate Lenin Moreno wins the presidential election, set to enter a second round on April 2, Norwegian journalist Eirik Vold, told TeleSUR.
Ecuador’s National Electoral Council (CNE) announced on February 22 that the presidential race will head to a second round after left-wing candidate Lenin Moreno came first in the February 19 election, but fell agonisingly short of the 40% needed to win a first-round victory.
Moreno, from the ruling Alianza Pais (AP) of outgoing President Rafael Correa, won 39.35% of the vote. He beat right-wing Guillermo Lasso of the opposition CREO party by more than 10 percentage points, with the ex-banker winning 28.12%.
Despite global financial crises that have rocked the small South American nation in recent years, Ecuador has managed to achieve landmark social and economic progress in the past decade under the left-wing government of President Rafael Correa, according to a new report from the Centre for Economic and Policy Research.
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said on January 30 that Latin America needed to respond with a strong, united front against the anti-immigration measures of US President Donald Trump, TeleSUR English said.
Ecuador’s ruling party, the leftist Pais Alliance of President Rafael Correa, has elected disability rights activist Lenin Moreno to be its next candidate for president during its October 1 congress, TeleSUR English said. Presidential elections are scheduled for February 19 next year.
Ecuador ramped up its fight against tax dodging on September 21 as the South American country proposed a plan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York aimed at tackling offshore tax havens with stiffer regulation.
The push comes in the wake of the Panama Papers leaks that exposed just the tip of the proverbial iceberg of global tax evasion and its impact on the global South.
A United States federal appeals court ruled on August 8 in favour of the oil giant Chevron in a case that dates back more than 20 years. The ruling blocks an Ecuadorean indigenous community from collecting a judgement of nearly US$8.6 billion for environmental damage to the Amazon rainforest.