In Ecuador there are 279 political organizations approved for the 2023 sectional elections. Of these, only six are political parties. The rest are national, provincial, cantonal and parish movements.
That figure is the main reason why the Government raises, in its question 5, the need to reduce the number of political organizations. He says that the current electoral regulations cause four problems.
The issue has been under discussion at least since the last two electoral processes (2019 and 2021). For these elections, the National Electoral Council (CNE) expects at least 80,000 candidates for mayors, prefectures, councils and parish councils.
The Executive aims that political movements not only have permanent adherents, but also affiliates, such as parties. In addition, he wants them to regularly show their 1.5% membership as a control measure.
The former president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), Carlos Aguinaga, says that one of the problems regarding the issue is that, in the end, only 10% of those who give their signature for the constitution of the movements are part of them.
The draft amendment states the same thing: ” 90% of its members do not have any kind of participatory link with the movement, nor are they subject to any responsibility or control regime.”
The four problems
The first is the low quality of political organizations. In this regard, the draft amendment identifies three consequences. One has to do with the lack of representativeness of the movements. They also suffer from a loosely cohesive structure and there is political polarization.
The second has to do with fragmentation and dispersion. They do not have a survival-based incentive to form alliances. “They are incentivized to fragment in order to receive higher public stipends,” the bill says. Consequently, the vote will be dispersed.
The third is the violation of the principle of equality. According to the Executive, it is violated when there are stricter requirements for parties than for movements. This taking into account that both organizations share the same registration percentage, and both enjoy the same rights and obligations.
The fourth problem is that the CNE does not have a reliable registry. According to the draft amendment, today there is no registry supervised by the CNE and the data contained in the institution is not continuously updated. So, there is no official database that allows knowing how many members – between adherents and permanent adherents – the political movements have.
Another problem in each electoral process is that there are complaints about non-consensual affiliations. In the current process, the complaints were initiated by those who aspired to be part of the Police and appeared to be affiliated with parties and movements.
According to the president of the CNE, Diana Atamaint, the change could be a solution. However, for this change (the recurring control of the registry) it is necessary for the entity to have a budget. Thus, technological options can be implemented for that purpose.
Modification
The amendment requires parties and movements to have at least 1.5% membership. In addition, these will be necessary both for the creation and for its operation. And they must know the ideological principles of the political organization, promote its goals and will be subject to the different controls.
The CNE will have to modernize its systems to verify the identity of affiliates. It will also implement an electronic platform that allows each citizen to check their membership status.
