The OAS mission notes the calm development of the elections in Ecuador
The chief of the observation mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) for the sectional elections in Ecuador, the Costa Rican Kevin Casas, found this Sunday the "enormously calm" process that is taking place despite the "complex" of the vote .
In a statement to the press after visiting the Benalcázar school in the north of the Ecuadorian capital early in the afternoon, Casas said that "in his campaign the whole process has been extremely calm" and that "in his election day he is being enormously quiet. "
"We do not have a single major incident reported from anywhere in the country," said the international observer, who heads a mission of 35 people spread across the country.
In total, the mission has received three complaints of minor importance, which, he said, "is very little."
Casas insisted that "it has been a very quiet day" despite the "complex process" that is developing, especially because of "the large number of positions that are at stake, as well as the election of the Citizen Participation Council ( Cpccs) ".
More than 80,000 candidates have come to an election in which Ecuadorians elect 5,675 local authorities and their alternates among mayors, prefects, urban and rural councilors, and members of parish boards in Ecuador, where the electoral census includes 13,261. 994 people qualified to vote.
The seven vowels and the same number of substitutes of the Cpccs will also come out of the polls, an organism that has the function of electing the high officials of state control.
The number of candidates far exceeds those who attended the most recent elections on local authorities: more than 27,000 in 2004, 33,000 in 2009 and just over 28,000 in 2014.
Some experts have attributed this high figure to that they are the first elections after the "correísta era", that is to say, after the former president, Rafael Correa (2007-2017) will leave office, since in the country there is more freedom and democracy.
This has resulted in countless ballots in which sometimes the voter does not even know the candidates, especially those of Cpccs, which is delaying the voting process.
"There are complaints about the complexity of the process of casting the ballot, because there are too many ballots, and the lack of sufficient information is mainly about the candidacies of Cpccs," Casas said.
He added that "it is a complaint that, somehow, we had heard in the previous process of the mission when we met with the political and institutional forces here in Ecuador."
In that sense, the members of the mission have heard that "there is a bit of annoyance due to the length of the rows and the time they have to wait, which is understandable".
"It is important that they have patience not only to vote, which requires a little bit, but to wait for the results, we may be awake late," said the head of international observers of the OAS.
