MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Next president of Ecuador will have to govern with a fragmented legislature

With more than 90% of the votes counted and two seats still to be defined, former President Correa's party will obtain 48 seats

The recent general elections in Ecuador defined a legislative panorama radically different from the previous one, with two forces that will hold more than 50% of the total of 137 seats, the Correista alliance Union for Hope (UNES) and the indigenous party Pachakutik (PK), and the disappearance of Alianza PAIS, the force founded by former president Rafael Correa and taken over four years ago by outgoing president Lenín Moreno.

With more than 90% of the votes counted and two seats still to be defined, Correa's party will obtain 48 seats, while the PK, 27. The third force will not be one of the traditional parties, but Izquierda Democrática (ID), the party of the engineer and TikTok sensation who entered politics in this election, Xavier Hervas, with 18 seats, according to the newspaper Expreso.

He is followed by the Social Christian Party and its allies, with 16 seats, although this figure may still go up to 17 when the election is over.

The CREO movement, of the right-wing unity candidate Guillermo Lasso, is the big loser, obtaining 12 legislators between its own and in alliance, eight less than it has in the outgoing Congress.

No force would achieve the necessary majority of 69 seats in the National Assembly, whose members will take office next May 14, so that the projects of the future Government, which will be defined in the ballot of April 11, will require a complicated engineering of alliances.

Should Correism succeed in winning in the presidential run-off next April, it will need to negotiate with PK and ID assembly members in order to reach a majority of 69 seats and pass its laws and reforms.

The point of coincidence here could be the opposition to the adjustment policies of the current Moreno administration. However, the relationship between the leadership of the indigenous party and Correism is still very tense.

The legislative atomization would be even more evident if one of the two candidates currently fighting for second place, Pachakutik leader Yaku Perez and CREO leader Lasso, wins in the runoff.

If the former prevails, he may seek coincidences with Correism on economic and social issues or, if the latter becomes a hard opposition, he should ally himself with all the rest of the aforementioned large benches, where a more moderate to conservative view predominates.

In the case of Lasso, the effort would be even greater because his bench would be the most minority of the five. In this scenario, his main negotiation weapon -as he demonstrated during the campaign- will be to appeal to the correísmo-anticorreísmo rift in order to isolate the former.

The new conformation of the Legislative Assembly of Ecuador accompanies the results of the first presidential round and ratifies not only the bad choice made by the traditional right wing and the atomization of the electorate in general, but also confirms the disappearance of Alianza País, the force that swept the general elections only four years ago and then abandoned Correísmo when Moreno broke with Correa and led his political and judicial persecution.