In the midst of economic problems, resulting in rising unemployment, emigration and a spiral of violence, which the government links to drug trafficking, Ecuadorians go to the polls this Sunday, August 20, to elect a new president, among the eight current candidates, and a new legislative branch, made up of 137 members of the National Assembly (Parliament).

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With the country’s attention focused on the violence perpetrated by gangs and drug cartels, security issues are paramount and may be decisive in the elections.

The Ecuadorian electoral campaign has been marked by the assassinations of a presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio; one of the country’s most popular mayors, Agustín Intriago; and other political leaders who were part -directly or indirectly-of this democratic election.

In this context, it is tragic to remember that the August 20 elections, in which more than 13 million Ecuadorians will participate, were generated by a constitutional mechanism known in Ecuador as "cross death."

This is the first time that this resource, described in Article 148 of the Ecuadorian Constitution, which was included in the constitutional text of 2008, promulgated during the mandate of former President Rafael Correa, has been used.

The tweet reads, "Elections conclude in Ecuador; lived a day of early elections to elect president, vice president and 137 assembly members, who will hold office until 2025."

The process began on May 17, when President Guillermo Lasso signed the decree to dissolve the Assembly, which was about to vote on his possible dismissal.

Since he assumed the presidency in May 2021, the president has not had a significant parliamentary bloc and many of his opponents accuse him of not having achieved alliances with other political sectors.

The heterogeneous opposition - made up of very dissimilar blocs such as the Correaist left wing (allies of former President Rafael Correa), the Christian Social right wing and indigenous groups - did form an alliance to obtain the necessary votes to move forward with the impeachment trial against the president.

The tweet reads, "Candidates have had to go to the polls in Ecuador with extreme security measures, due to the threat of violence in these early presidential elections, the replacement of the murdered Fernando Villavicencio, Christian Zurita voted with heavy security."

The candidate is confident of advancing to the second round of the elections. After casting his vote in a school in Guayaquil, Sonnenhozlner assured that in order to change the situation of the country, “people with honesty, courage, determination and preparation” are needed. He also anticipated that he will take control of the prisons, where more than 400 prisoners have been killed in various massacres since 2020.

The parliamentary opposition accused the president of embezzlement for not terminating a contract between the Ecuadorian Oil Fleet (Flopec) and the Amazonas Tankers consortium for the transportation of oil derivatives, which allegedly caused serious economic damage to the state coffers. Lasso, on the other hand, said that the opposition had put “Ecuadorian democracy in check” through a strategy of “destabilization.”

According to Article 148, the President may use cross-death on three grounds: if he considers that the Assembly has performed functions that do not correspond to it, if it obstructs the National Development Plan or if there is a serious political crisis and internal commotion.

Following the signing of the presidential decree, the law specifies that the National Electoral Council (CNE) was to call presidential and legislative elections within a maximum period of seven days, which it effectively did on May 24.

The law provides that the public representatives elected in these elections will remain in office until the end of the legislature that was interrupted by the “cross death.”

This means that the candidates who will participate in this Sunday’s elections do not know when they will take office - due to the uncertainty of whether everything will be resolved in the first round or whether another election between the two most voted candidates will be necessary - but they know that their mandate will end on May 23, 2025, which was the planned end of Lasso’s government.

Something else that the incoming president knows is that the “cross-death” mechanism cannot be invoked again during the remainder of this constitutional term. If no presidential candidate wins in the first round, the new elections between the candidates with the highest number of votes will be held on October 15.

A party can win in a single round when it obtains at least the absolute majority of valid votes cast or if it gets at least 40% of the votes and a difference of more than ten percentage points with the second place.

By using this constitutional remedy, the president risks losing power; hence the colloquial expression “cross death”, since both the president and the National Assembly may lose their powers.

But both the occupant of the Carondelet Palace (the seat of Ecuador’s executive power) and the assembly members have the possibility of running again, something that Lasso -submerged at minimal levels of popularity-declined.

“This is the greatest honor of my life, however, far above the office of the president, I love democracy. Far above the presidency, I love freedom. And if my duty as president requires me to step down from my position to protect democracy, then I will do so,” the president said when announcing that he would not compete.

After the “cross death,” the 136 assembly members lost their posts and Lasso governed through decrees, which have had to pass through the filter of the Constitutional Court. But the Assembly had, at the time of dissolution, even less popularity than Lasso.

According to the pollster Perfiles de Opinión, less than 6% of Ecuadorians approved the performance of the legislative branch, while less than 14% considered the presidential management positive.

The main concern of Ecuadorians is the wave of violence that the country is experiencing. Ecuador closed 2022 with its worst crime record, with 4,603 violent deaths, which meant a rate of 25 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

“The growth is exponential, since, in 2021, the official rate was 13.7 deaths, that is, in one year the increase was 82.5%. With this new data, Ecuador becomes the country with the highest growth in criminal violence in 2022 in Latin America,” reported Ecuadorian news portal Primicias. In recent years, the Andean nation has gone from being a transit country to a drug distribution center.