Last minute of the protests and National Strike in Ecuador, LIVE: dialogue in deadlock

On the 17th day of the national strike, the crisis in Ecuador reached a “stalemate” this Wednesday with the broken dialogue between the Government and the indigenous movement, which leads the protests over the cost of living, and with the ruler William Lassowith a victory flavored with defeat, after saving a motion in Parliament to dismiss him.

The protests led by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (Conaie) complete 17 days with roadblocksroadblocks and violent incidents such as the burning of police units and the attack on two convoys of trucks with basic necessities guarded by the military.

Precisely, the death of a soldier in the attack on a convoy transporting fuel in the Amazon was the trigger for lasso broke off the dialogue with the president of the Conaie, Leonidas Iza, who participated in a meeting on Monday, along with other indigenous leaders, and representatives of the Executive.

LOOK: National Strike in Ecuador: Guillermo Lasso suspends dialogue with leader of indigenous protests after death of soldier

Lasso said that only when there are “legitimate representatives of all the peoples and nationalities of Ecuador” open to a “real and frank” dialogue, will the Government return to the dialogue table, a position of “authoritarianism”, according to Conaie, that he considered that Lasso did not break with Iza but “with the people.”

The indigenous movement, with its leaders at the forefront, demonstrated again this Wednesday in the center of Quito, in a peaceful march where it endorsed that they will not leave the capital until they have answers.

Protesters with shields gather in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, on June 29, 2022. (MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP).

DEAD END?

For analyst Wendy Reyes, the situation is “very complicated” because the Government does not see a decision, while, if there was the possibility of a replacement for Iza, it would take a long time to designate him, since the assembly process to elect him as president took about a year.

“It is dead end street. We are experiencing a stalemate. There is a tremendous cost for the country, not only economic, in everything and the moods are complicated “the professor at George Washington University told Efe, lamenting that a story “of the good and the bad” has been constructed, which “is not good for the country either.”

LOOK: The ghost of ungovernability lurks in an Ecuador without political leadership

The protests have so far left six dead, one of them the military man who perished on Tuesdayand some 400 injured among protesters and law enforcement, as well as millionaire economic losses.

In addition, a society dismayed to find that protesters get out of trucks and puncture the wheels of every passing vehicle, while others, threatening with spears and sticks, force businesses to close, which has caused some citizen confrontations.

Reyes – also a professor at the Andean University – recalled that in order to remove the Armed Forces, the Government needs a state of emergency, a measure that it repealed last weekend due to the decrease in the intensity of the protests.

The Conaie had demanded the elimination of the state of exception to start the dialogues, but without giving up its mobilization, in which Reyes sees “many actors”, including some violent ones, while Conaie herself has also spoken of “infiltrators”.

THERE WERE PROGRESS

An expert in governance, Reyes pointed out that in the midst of the crisis there was progress, since Conaie acknowledged that the Government had responded to five of its ten requests, while the rapprochement progressed.

In addition, in the first meeting on Monday, there were advances that led the Government to commit not to promote oil activity in the Amazon and not to give more mining concessions in protected natural areas and intangible zones.

Nevertheless, the indigenous movement demanded from the Executive a greater reduction in the prices of subsidized fuelswhich were reduced last Sunday by 10 cents.

Reyes told Efe that a possible way out would be Lasso’s decision to personally sit down at the dialogue table and for the indigenous movement to find another interlocutor, something with which analyst Santiago Pérez Samaniego, professor of political science at the Private Technical University, agrees. of Loja (UTPL).

That lasso presiding over the dialogues “would be a demonstration of the leadership that the government has lacked,” to resolve “the very just social demands that the indigenous movement and a large part of the Ecuadorian people have,” the analyst told Efe.

“VICTORY WITH THE FLAVOR OF DEFEAT”

In the midst of the protests, Lasso faced an impeachment motion raised by the Correísta legislators due to “serious political crisis and internal commotion”, which is contemplated by the Constitution.

The initiative had the support of 80 of the 137 legislators, which was not enough for the correists to remove him (they needed 92), but which left Lasso with “a victory that tasted of defeat,” Pérez Samaniego said in statements to Efe.

“The president will have a very complicated time from now on” and will have to “try to recover governability,” said Pérez Samaniego, while Reyes pointed out that in order to solve the current crisis, decisions must be made “now” and not get involved in analyzing “who won or who lost, because we are all losing”.

Source: Elcomercio