More and more leaders have committed to participate in the Ecuador’s National Dialogue for Equality and Social Justice amid calls for continued protests against the administration of President Rafael Correa.
1,400 mayors and other authorities of the PAIS Alliance party met with President Rafael Correa to discuss strategies to strengthen the dialogue in various places across Ecuador.
President Rafael Correa stressed the need for peaceful discourse when some members of the opposition support a “soft coup”.
“There is a soft coup in the making,” the president told the press. “While there are people with good intentions who are democratically exercising their right to protest because they disagree with aspects of this government, there are others who have been for months, I mentioned this over a year ago, are trying to destabilize the government and wear us down as much as possible."
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Those present at the meeting with President Correa and other leaders of the PAIS Alliance party movement discussed how the national dialogue can be supported to ensure greater communication between citizens and the national government.
"The Citizen's Revolution has always been open to dialogue with citizens, but today this dialogue has a specific objective,” Secretary General of the PAIS Alliance Party Doris Soliz told teleSUR. “It is a debate on equality and social justice. How Ecuadorean society is comprised, and in what direction it should continue growing. We have put forward a theory, that we must improve the inheritance and capital gains bills, so that unfounded wealth speculation is avoided.”
The National Assembly is putting forward its own dialogue, and United Front block, made up of 14 political parties and organizations has said that they are working to promote debate in all corners of the country.
"This political debate is put forward and deepened by political organizations that are today making this call, and we the leaders of these political organizations of the United Front are ready to debate with ideas,” said President of the United Front Fabian Solano to teleSUR.
Dialogue and debates have been held in neighborhoods throughout the nation, to discuss wealth redistribution and the future of the country. While increasingly more sectors are opening themselves up for debate, the opposition is moving forward with plans for an indigenous-led uprising and national strike, insisting that the dialogue would not serve their interests.