When candidates improvise to curry favor with their voters, they leave themselves open to taking their campaigns down undesired paths.
Although ridicule has become a common currency in times of electoral campaigns, the excesses committed by some candidates in their desperate desire to connect with their voters is still striking.
The tradition was started by the current president, Guillermo Lasso, drinking beer and swearing in the 2021 campaign, and curiously, it has been embraced by his detractors.
That logic reaches its apex on TikTok, but sometimes candidates also make a fool of themselves in settings where they have less control, like interviews or public events. Here are some examples.
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Topic smokes marijuana in an interview
The presidential candidate, Jan Topic, caught the attention of the voters when, in an interview with for a podcast, to which he was accompanied by the former presidential candidate, Pedro Freile, he decided to light a marijuana ‘joint’ and smoke it skillfully.
And, of course, there is nothing wrong with smoking marijuana in principle, there are even some who defend the consumption of marijuana as less addictive than cigarettes, or the consumption of alcohol.
Some say that, many. And maybe they are right…
But surely that’s not what the Social Christian voters think, whose leaders are the staunchest opponents of the so-called ‘consumption table’, which allows drug users to carry a certain amount for their personal consumption.
That opposition would be an anecdote, if it weren’t for the fact that that party sponsors Topic’s candidacy.
Perhaps someone forgot to tell Topic that micro-trafficking of marijuana also plays a small role in the violence associated with drug trafficking, the same violence that Topic has promised to uproot. Curious his position!
