Rafael Correa’s options for the 2021 elections vanished as soon as the Ecuadorian Justice ratified his sentence of eight years in prison for bribery at the beginning of September, but Correísmo maintained the hope of placing two related names on the presidential ballot. That possibility, which was left in the hands of the National Electoral Council and the rigor with which it applied the regulations on acceptance of candidacies, was unlocked this Wednesday. Despite the fact that the former president did not meet one of the initial requirements to formally become an aspiring vice president, the electoral authority granted the UNES alliance a period of two days to find him a replacement.
Andrés Aráuz, a former minister of the previous government who went unnoticed in the final stretch of the Correísta Administration, led the ballot for Centro Democrático, the organization that serves as the basis for the newly created coalition. Carlos Rabascall, a journalist who worked on public television, had been appointed as Correa’s replacement. But UNES needed the National Electoral Council to formally knock down Rafael Correa’s nomination and, with that, open the door to his replacement.
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