We now go live with our colleague Jorge Gestoso to bring us what we can expect in Ecuador presidential runoff.
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00:00And in this context we are going live to Ecuador with our special envoy Jorge
00:05Gestoso to have all the details as Ecuador gears up for this presidential runoff.
00:11Hello Jorge, welcome to From the South. What can you tell us from Ecuador?
00:14We are about less than 20 hours away from the beginning of the runoff and the president
00:25Daniel Novoa has agreed the state of exception in seven provinces out of the 24 of this country.
00:33That means that that gives the armed forces the authority to be running on the streets.
00:40There is also involved a curfew starting at 10 pm. On the other hand, last day, yesterday,
00:50President Novoa has agreed to remove the security guards of the candidate, her rival, Luisa González,
01:01and replace for another team of the armed forces, something that has been observed as a real mean
01:09decision because the only interpretation that it had, even from the presidential candidate Luisa
01:17Gonzalez is trying to destabilize her point of view and her family and herself, meaning that she is not
01:28secure because she has received many, many, many death threats. And on the other hand, now the big
01:36question mark is what is going to happen with the undecided, with the vote that has been voted in blank,
01:44the first round. Different areas says different results and according to the National Electoral Council,
01:55around 9 pm is expected, emphasis in expected, to have an irreversible trend of the results. And so
02:07what we know is that out of the four exit polls companies that were ready and approved to run exit polls,
02:18only two of them are going to do it. They are going to have to present their results before 5 pm, that is the
02:27moment that the polls close, but they are going to present it to the National Electoral Council and then the
02:35National Electoral Council will decide when they are going to release it. So there is a lot of expectations
02:42and most definitely we have never seen that level of disparities on the viewpoints of the people.
02:52There is a lot of tension, but in the streets of Quito things are looking pretty quiet. This is the second day
03:00of what they call the electoral silence. People cannot do electoral campaigns, they cannot pass any
03:08ads, but what the president candidate Novoa is doing is running on TV. They are not commercials,
03:16but they say that there are achievements because it has created the way they presented achievements from the
03:24armed forces, the police, the National Electoral Council. That is a way to try to show that his government
03:34and himself is efficient. So we are following all that and we are going to share it with you throughout the day.
03:41We get back to you now.
03:42Just also one question before finishing this report. What can you tell us on how the people are perceiving this
03:50recent declaration of emergency, this state of emergency decree in Ecuador? We know that this election is
03:54taking place amidst a severe insecurity crisis. How could this impact the electoral day tomorrow?
04:04Depends on whom you just ask a question. For many people say that Ecuador has been living almost
04:13in a permanent basis in a permanent basis on a state of exception. So there's no surprise for most of them.
04:23There's another part of the population that sees that as a trick of the president candidate Daniel Novoa
04:31that is trying to dissuade in a way people to leave their homes and go to the polls, creating the perception
04:41that the streets are more dangerous than usual and therefore that could eventually work on his favor.
04:50That is his expectation. So depending on whom you talk is the answer that you get.
04:59Thank you, Hestoso, for this report. We're going to stay in touch for the upcoming news brief to continue
05:04having everything as Ecuador-Crissov for this presidential runoff. Thank you for being with us at these early hours.
05:12Thank you for the opportunity.