Amid harsh deportations from the U.S., Ecuador holds elections

As U.S. military cargo planes have begun landing in Ecuador transporting deported Ecuadorians under the Trump regime, with their wrists and ankles bound, Ecuador will hold General Elections on February 9. I interviewed Ramón Mendez Rivas, an alternate member of the National Assembly representing Ecuadorians in the U.S. and Canada. Mendez is currently holding the seat of Assembly-member Monica Palacios during the official thirty day campaign period while she runs for re-election, as Ecuador's constitution requires all federal elected officials to do. Both Mendez and Palacios are from Ecuador's largest progressive party, Movimento Revolución Ciudadana (Citizen's Revolution Movement).

At stake in the elections are the Presidency of Ecuador and every seat in the National Assembly. Mendez spoke about the Trump deportations of Ecuadorians; the needs of Ecuadorians in the U.S.; the disenfranchisement of most Ecuadorians living in the diaspora; the current situation in Ecuador; and the potential for fraud in the elections.

Harvey Goldberg: The seat that you occupy represents Ecuadorians in the United States and Canada. This is perhaps a little bit of an unusual concept for people in the United States and elsewhere that there are seats in Ecuador's National Assembly that represent Ecuadorians residing in North America.

Assembly-member Ramon Mendez Rivas: With the new constitution that Ecuador created in 2008-9, Ecuadorians living abroad, whether it's the United States, Canada, Europe, etcetera, have representation, in the National Assembly. All Ecuadorians, no matter where they live, have the right to representation and the protection of the Ecuadorian government. I represent, the migrants in the United States and Canada, one of three divisions representing Ecuadorians in the diaspora.

The other two divisions for migrants are Europe, Asia, and Oceania, as it is called in Spanish, - that's one representing group. The other representing group is Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean. There are three diaspora districts, the third the United States and and Canada. No matter where Ecuadorians are they they are represented. Migrants living in the US and Canada are represented by me at this moment. Right now, in the headlines are deportations - President Donald Trump has ordered a massive increase in deportations.

HG: There have already been deportations to Ecuador of people living and working in the United States. Can you talk about how you to respond to this situation? Yes.

RMR: We, do not agree with what the United States is doing. We will be putting out a statement and a resolution in the National Assembly soon completely rejecting the deportation of Ecuadorians, not because the United States does not have its own laws and sovereignty, but because of the treatment and the way they are being deported. There are many reported cases of abuse and mistreatment. That's why we're rejecting it. The presidents of Mexico and Colombia have pushed back on the conditions in which deportees are being transported in military planes,

HG: Has president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, said anything about these conditions?

RMR: President Noboa has not mentioned anything. He has been silent. He has been campaigning, for his reelection and not taking care of the country, let alone, the deportees. There has been no official statements, and we don't expect one.

He was present at the inauguration of Donald Trump, which implies that he agrees with his government. Noboa has shown he will do nothing to stand up to Donald Trump, or to the US, even if that means not protecting his own citizens.

HG: Can you describe the condition that Ecuadorans have so far been deported back to Ecuador in?

RMR: They were chained, with their wrists and ankles bound.

They go back to Ecuador owing tens of thousands of dollars that they had to pay to the coyotes. The conditions that they've been deported in and the silence of President Noboa adds insult to injury.

HG: Since you represent Ecuadorians living in the United States and Canada, what are some other issues that they face?

RMR: In the United States and Canada, particularly in the in the United States, where a majority of Ecuadorian migrants live, the main the main thing is being able to afford housing and being able to find work.

I know these are not things that pertain to the Ecuadorian National Assembly. It is precisely because of this that the position of a National Assembly-member representing migrants needs to go above and beyond. In order for an Assembly-person to fulfill the needs of people living in, let's say, in New York, they have to have make connections to institutions and elected officials in New York to really solve those issues.

The Ecuadorian Consulate in the U.S. has been improving their service, but they're not as good as they should be, or as they were during La Revolution Ciudadana [from 2007 to 2017 when Rafael Correa was President.]

An issue Ecuadorians in the U.S. need, addressed is for the consulate and the Nacional Electoral Council to open up the registry to be able to register to vote. Right now, people who did not sign up to vote outside of the country by the deadline was March, 2024, will not be able to vote until 2029. They will not be able to vote in Ecuadorian elections until the next presidential election in 2029.

Why? Because voters in the diaspora don't vote for governors, mayors, or local government. The only elections that we really are involved in are the federal ones. There should be an ongoing process where you can sign up to vote at all times. That there isn't is creating a huge disenfranchisement.

There's already a massive number of Ecuadorians in diaspora that do not vote, that are not registered to vote. Out of, more or less, 100,000 people that are signed up to vote in the US, about only 24,000 vote. So we're talking about a quarter. The main focus of the representative of migrants is to make sure that they have their basic rights as Ecuadorians living abroad, being able to vote, being one of them. So we definitely have to move in the direction of having an easier process for migrants to register to vote, and to be able to vote from abroad without having to have this huge gap of four years in between, which causes massive disenfranchisement.

HG: Turning to the situation within Ecuador, can you describe the situation is in the country now?

Ecuador's insecurity, has risen. You can look at any type of reliable data, and you will see that poverty and extreme poverty has increased.. This results in kids not having the things that they need. Public investment has has diminished. There is, for example, no investment in schools. There's no investment in roads. There's virtually no investment in small business creation or anything of the sort.

Ecuadorians were charged a tax, a 3% increase, from 12% to 15%, in sales tax. That was supposed to be an investment in security. There has been no investment in anything whatsoever.

That money has gone to pay IMF loans. Ecuadorian society right now is in need of basic things. The youth and parents who can't find a solution in Ecuador,are turning to migration. And that's why, in 2024, there were over 200,000 Ecuadorians detected at the US southern border. And I say detected because there were hundreds of thousands more.

Ecuadorian society is severely deteriorated and that has to change with some type of concrete action at the executive level. Luisa Gonzalez in the Presidency would be great. Right now, Ecuadorian society is the worst situation in my lifetime..

HG: You mentioned Luisa Gonzalez, who is your party's candidate for president. Could you speak about the major initiatives that she is proposing?

RMR: Her main initiative is to increase the spending and the investment in security and to schools. She always tells her story and I tell the same story, because I had the same experience. She's from a small rural town. It's as rural as it gets. However, the government built a state of the art school that was giving children an education that otherwise would never be available to them - with state of the art computers and everything.

And taking that type of investment back to those spots that need it the most, whether it's in the Amazon, whether it's the inner city of Guayaquil, that's what needs to be addressed, right now. And not only that, but she has mentioned also that for the youth there will be some type of of help with credits to go to school with scholarships, and job creation as well. To put it bluntly, the government would be back. The state would be back. Right now, the state is is is lacking.

HG: Unemployment, the lack of jobs has been a big problem in Ecuador, as in many countries in Latin America, causing many people to migrate to look for work. What can your party do to increase employment opportunities in Ecuador?

RMR: When the revolution in power, we have a record that we can work off, we have an example.

There was massive investment into, for example, road building, infrastructure, and building schools. All of this creates, jobs, whether directly or indirectly.

If you have investments, you will have shops popping up alongside a road that now cars are going through. You're not only giving jobs to construction workers, but you're also giving jobs to engineers, professionals who probably just graduated or or are starting to work and need that experience, which with the lack of investment, with the lack of of projects, you're not getting. So that's the main thing.

Also, let's not forget that during Rafael Correa's government, we had the Interior Ministry. That was destroyed by the Moreno government [2017-21}. We will restore many government positions that have been erased. Luisa Gonzalez has mentioned that she will do what Rafael Correa did. That starts with investments and re-creating those government institutions that were destroyed.

HG: Looking at the election on February 9, President Noboa has been charged with violating a number of Ecuador's election laws, regarding stepping down from the presidency while he is campaigning during the official 30 day campaign period and also in bypassing the Vice President, Veronica Abad, by appointing someone else as acting president while he campaigns. This has raised increased concerns that there is a possibility of fraud regarding election results.

RMR: The fear of election fraud is real. You have government workers being told to go campaign for him. What you see in the street and what you see in the polls don't match. According to the polls, he's first or he's second. The fear is that there's something brewing, some.type of fraud or self-coup, with the election results.

He's breaking all the laws and all the rules blatantly. He has a vice president that was elected democratically by the people of Ecuador with him. So even though she is a self-identified libertarian and conservative, and is against all the leftist ideas that you can think of, she should be the acting president.

Daniel Noboa is is not following constitutional law and rules of Ecuador. Meanwhile, he has put two different women as acting vice presidents. So Ecuador's institutions right now are all over the place. We have a president that's not following the rules.

So there's suspicion that something is brewing in Quito. Just thinking about it, even outside of politics, as a former professor in Ecuador of of social sciences and political science, I can only think of how maybe a coup is brewing or how maybe if he does “win”, he's gonna stay in power for god knows how long with the support of the US.

This just shows why he is catering to the US. to tell them, hey, you have an ally here. He has the, Contentious Electoral Tribunal, which is a step above the National Electoral Council, which deals with legalities in electoral politics on his side. The Constitutional Court, the supreme court of Ecuador, is also his side. They recently voted against eight or nine of his executive orders, but besides that, they're not saying anything to him regarding the rules and the laws that he's breaking. So there's something brewing. We do not trust the process of the elections.

And not only that, migrants, in this case, not living in the US, but Ecuadorian migrants, living in Venezuela, where there is a massive population of Ecuadorian diaspora, of which 9,000 are registered to vote, or about 9,000, they will not be able to vote, in this elections because Ecuador has no, relationships with Venezuela at the moment. The same issue was gonna happen with Mexico, due to their lack of diplomatic relationships, but the Swiss embassy will step in to help Ecuadorians in Mexico to vote.

And it's not only the “coup” or the rules that he's breaking as the executive, but he's also breaking laws that affect how the next National Assembly will be composed, so we do not trust the process.

It's important that Ecuadorians and the migrants living in the US, and Canada be involved, to register to vote, even though if they decide not to go back to Ecuador anytime soon or if they can't, to be active and just be aware of what's going on in in their country.

When you know that a lot of the money, a lot of the revenue that Ecuador has, comes from remmittances are a huge part of our economy. And now with the deportations, even right wing libertarian Ecuadorian economists are mentioning how that's it's gonna hurt our economy because we will lose a certain percentage of remittances because of the deportations.

I will just close with there is no way we can understand Ecuadorian reality today without understanding the reality of Ecuadorian migrants.