In Blow to Arauz, 16% of Votes Cast Were Null in Ecuador Runoff

In a blow to Andres Arauz's candidacy, environmentalist indigenous ex-candidate Yaku Perez called on his supporters to cast null votes, which they did to the tune of 1.75 million, far more than the 423,000 vote difference between Lasso and Arauz.

Published 12 April 2021

Opinion

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In the same call made by the New York Times, Indigenous leader Yaku Perez led the campaign for the null vote in Ecuador's second-round presidential elections Sunday.

The option to annul the vote and thus fracture the left vote, postulated by Perez's Pachakutik party, experienced unprecedented support in the Ecuadorian presidential elections.

The call made by former Ecuadorian presidential candidate Yaku Perez, and his party, the Pachakutik movement, for citizens to vote null in this coming elections, had important popular support.

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More than 1.7 million of the votes cast at the polls, representing a formidable 16.33 percent of the total, were counted as null, sending a message of disapproval to both candidates who participated in the runoff.

This way of voting had its consequences. Those 13 provinces where Yaku Perez obtained a majority of votes during the first round of elections were the ones that, in the end, were decisive in the victory of Guillermo Lasso.

Así votan muchos #ecuatorianos en #Europa en resistencia a la falta de #Transparencia del #CNE en #EleccionesEC2021 pic.twitter.com/zMTJumlcSD
— Yaku Pérez Guartambel (@yakuperezg) April 11, 2021

"This is how many #Ecuadorians in #Europe vote in resistance to the lack of #transparency of the #CNE in #ElectionsEC2021."

Yaku Perez and his party, Pachakutik, asked their supporters to vote null in protest for what they consider an electoral fraud in the first round of February 7, when after spending a large part of the count qualifying for the second round with Arauz, he was suddenly surpassed by Lasso by a mere 32,000 votes.

The electoral bodies dismissed his appeals and requests for a recount in several provinces of the country, including Lasso and Perez's agreement to request a recount, which Lasso himself retracted.

This position was recently supported by a faction within the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), an organization which, through a communiqué, expressed: "we make our official position (...) to promote the ideological null vote for organizational unity in rejection of divisionism and conjunctural demagogy in elections."