A truce

… has been declared. The protesting has (mostly) ceased. President Moreno has repealed the controversial Decree 833, which made fuel more costly for citizens. Together with the protestors, he’s negotiating a new law.

The unrest left a death toll of six or seven (I’ve seen conflicting reports).

Ecuadorian citizens and businesses lost a great deal of money due to looting, vandalism, work stoppages, etc. Apart from this, the protestors destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars of exportable oil.

President Moreno has accused his predecessor, Rafael Correa, of conspiring with Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela to overthrow Ecuador’s government.

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Ecuador lost a “friendly” soccer match against Argentina, six goals to one. I’m somewhat alarmed. No one else is. The Ecuadorian players have the excuse that they were distracted by the country’s turmoil.

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Ana and Ada have returned to Texas, along with David, who, for a couple of days, also visited South Bend.

Some photos of Ada and me:

My own child is due to be born tomorrow (which isn’t to say he will be). Currently, he weighs about 9 lbs.

News and visitors from Ecuador

Most readers will have heard of Ecuador’s latest political unrest (summarized here). Briefly, transport workers and the indígenas have been striking against the government’s austerity measures, and especially against the cutting of fuel subsidies (this was done to comply with borrowing conditions set by the International Monetary Fund). Thousands have marched on Quito, blocking roads. President Lenín Moreno has moved the government to Guayaquil.

It was clear that after Rafael Correa’s presidency, Ecuador would shift back toward the right; what wasn’t clear was how far or how speedily. In the election of 2016, I favored Moreno, the candidate of Correa’s party, because I thought he’d shift more gradually than his opponents would. But Correa already had made Ecuador cripplingly indebted to China; and now, perhaps out of necessity, Moreno has resumed dealings with the IMF, which, in the late 1990s, had insisted on detrimentally austere financial measures as borrowing conditions for Latin American countries. From 1997 to 2005, several Ecuadorian presidents were toppled after enacting austerity measures. I fear that history is about to repeat itself.

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My parents arrived in South Bend yesterday to visit little Ada and my own child (whenever he’s born). But it wasn’t easy for them to get here. They traveled from Santo Domingo to Quito several days early, during a lull in the protests. Then they went to the airport twenty hours before takeoff. Had they not done those things, they wouldn’t have made it through.

Anyhow, they’re here. This morning they’re at the Social Security office, dealing with the obstinate bureaucracy of the United States.

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On Tuesday, I got a couple of shots. They made me ache as with fever. I was especially miserable yesterday. This morning, my arms still hurt, but I seem to be on the up-and-up.

An election and two fairy tales

Yesterday, Ecuador held the second round of its presidential election. Different exit polls showed different winners. At 9:00 p.m. (U.S. Eastern Time) came the official percentages: slightly more than 51% for the ruling party’s candidate, Lenín Moreno; slightly less than 49% for his opponent, Guillermo Lasso.

I looked at social media. Fraude, fraude, some people were fuming at 9:02 (in my opinion, prematurely).

Lasso is asking for a recount. He’s citing how long it took to tally the votes after the first round. Of course, in that round, with more candidates, the ballots must have been harder for the vote-counters to read; and there was a narrower gap between one realistic outcome (Moreno’s outright victory) and the other (the need for a runoff vote). So it isn’t surprising that the first round’s tally was issued more slowly.

But let Lasso have his recount. I’d like the result to be clear.

One antagonist of Lasso’s is Julian Assange, of WikiLeaks, who for some years has been sheltered from criminal prosecution in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Lasso had pledged that if he were to become president, he’d evict Assange after thirty days. Encouraged by the election results, Assange tweeted: “I cordially invite Lasso to leave Ecuador within 30 days (with or without his tax haven millions).” All in good fun. Assange later clarified: “It was a joke to which Mr. Lasso lent himself. All is forgotten and I wish him the best in bringing Ecuador forward” (my translation). He also highlighted this strongly positive U.S. diplomatic cable about Moreno.

In the global press, the dominant story is that this election is ideological: socialism (Moreno) vs. capitalism (Lasso). Moreno’s victory means that the recession of Latin America’s “pink tide” has been interrupted. But a different trend is apparent from the Ecuadorian map: Moreno won all of the coastal provinces; Lasso won all of the “jungle” provinces and nearly all of the mountainous ones (as well as Galápagos). Ecuador’s starkest division is still regional, not ideological. Years ago, the ruling party was much stronger in the “Lasso” provinces; since then, it has alienated them. Whether Moreno will reach out to them remains to be seen. But I doubt whether Lasso, the guayaquileño banker, would have made them happy.

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On Saturday, Karin & I watched two movies. By coincidence, both were about the breaking of an ugliness curse (à la “Frog Prince”).

The first movie was Penelope. It featured Christina Ricci, cursed with a pig’s snout for a nose.

A houseguest brought this movie to us. I’d already seen it. No matter: I’d forgotten how many of its “bit” roles are played by actors I’m fond of. Nigel Havers of Chariots of Fire and Downton Abbey! Richard E. Grant of L.A. Story … and Downton Abbey! From 2005’s Pride and Prejudice: Mr. Bingley! (Our houseguest and Karin were swooning over Mr. Bingley.) Toward the end: Reese Witherspoon! She’s also the movie’s producer! (We watched with one eye on the TV screen and the other on Wikipedia.)

The second movie was the new CGI/live-action Beauty and the Beast. We watched it with Karin’s sister, Lily, at the cinema in Niles, which is distinguished for its cheap tickets and cheap food. I garnished my cheap hot dog with some free and rather painful jalapeñoes.

Again, it was amusing to learn who the actors were. After the spell upon the Beast’s castle had been broken, we realized we’d been watching … Emma Thompson! Sir Ian McKellen! Ewan McGregor!

As for the Beast –

– he was none other than Cousin Matthew! Of Downton Abbey!

This new Beauty and the Beast has one huge flaw. Unlike its predecessor, it doesn’t visually convey the humanity of the Beast’s servants: the Teapot, the Clock, the Candlestick, etc.

Consider Lumière, the Candlestick. Though he’s rendered in exquisite (sculptural) detail, the viewer must strain to catch glimpses of personality in his eyes. (Let me stress: I’m not complaining about how Lumière moves or speaks.)

To compare: When we watch 2001: A Space Odyssey, it’s much easier to read the “eye” of the HAL computer.

And in the cartoon Beauty and the Beast, Lumière is no sculptural masterpiece; yet his personality is written all over his face.

The election, pt. 2

The percentages aren’t going to change. A second voting round will take place. I’m glad – not because I want Lasso to come back and defeat Moreno, but because I want the outcome, whatever it is, to be clear to the whole country. Let the whiners have one less thing to whine about.

They sure have been whining the last couple of days. They began to accuse Moreno’s party of election fraud as soon as they saw that his share of the votes would be very close to 40%.

They’ve based their argument on how long it’s taking for the votes to be carefully tallied. What they don’t acknowledge is that it’s normal for this process to take several days in any election, and especially in a close election.

TeleSUR, the Latin American news agency, describes these accusations as what they are: whipping up discontent. (Then again, one might object, TeleSUR is based in countries where there is much sympathy for Ecuador’s ruling party.)

Here are a couple of reports from Britain – trustworthy ones, I hope.

The Guardian.

The Financial Times.

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UPDATE: The next voting round will be held on April 2.

Ecuador’s presidential election

Yesterday, elections were held in Ecuador. The votes are being tallied to see if a second round will be required in the presidential contest. By rule, to be declared the winner after just one round, a presidential candidate must receive 50% of the votes, or else he or she must receive 40% of the votes and outdo the next vote-getter by 10%.

This year, it’s close. As of this writing, the top vote-getters are Lenín Moreno with 39.08% and Guillermo Lasso with 28.43%.

Moreno is the candidate of the ruling party. He served as Rafael Correa’s vice president from 2007 to 2013. Lasso, a banker, was Correa’s closest opponent in the election of 2013.

My Facebook “friends” who discuss Ecuadorian politics tend to belong to the upper crust, and their aim is to get the socialistic ruling party out of office. They have nightmares of Ecuador turning into something like corrupt, disorganized, impoverished Venezuela. Thus they oppose Moreno. What Lasso stands for is not their focus.

My own views – impressionistic, not scientific – are that Ecuador is a society that needs large-scale economic redistribution (socialistic or otherwise); that although Ecuadorian socialism depends on unreliable, unsustainable revenue from oil, as Venezuelan socialism does, Ecuador will not cast its lot irrevocably with oil as Venezuela has done; and that the ruling party has shown far more competence than any other recent party.

There also is the question of authoritarianism, a charge frequently brought against Correa’s regime. To be sure, Correa has exhibited more than a dash of authoritarianism in his personality. But everything I’ve read suggests that the opposite is true of Moreno. Indeed, he has concerns that are very unusual for a politician. (For a few examples, see this article from 2013.) Moreno seems to exhibit genuine goodness – a quality which, in this age of Donald Trump, the world may finally decide it needs its politicians to have.

I must sleep now. From afar, these are my thoughts.