💬 Exclusive interview with Rafael Correa

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Rafael Correa: Lack of regional support was “painful”

Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s former two-term president and the most prominent figure on the country’s left, has lived in exile in Belgium since leaving office in 2017. He faces an eight-year prison sentence for corruption and would be arrested if he returned home. Correa insists his conviction was politically motivated, claiming it was the product of a judiciary swayed by a country that has veered rightward since his election loss.

From abroad, Correa has tried — and failed — to orchestrate a political comeback by proxy. His latest setback on April 13 was particularly painful, when President Daniel Noboa won re-election against Correa’s ally, Luisa González, by a comfortable 56-44 margin, defying polls that had forecast a tight race.

That claim was based on a report from Organization of American States (OAS) observers, which stated that a few ballots had ink stains that caused some confusion during the count. But the OAS later stated that in no way could this have explained Noboa’s winning margin, specifying that only a few incidents of this kind took place and that all of them were adequately resolved. Correa’s allegations remain unproven.

In an exclusive interview with The Brazilian Report, the former president remained adamant about his fraud claims and discussed regional allies from Brazil’s Lula to Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, as well as the future of Correísmo without Correa.

This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.

From your point of view, what happened during the electoral process?

They stole the election from us. We are facing an economic crisis, an energy crisis, a security crisis, a constitutional crisis, the vice president was removed on a whim and [Noboa] appointed a new vice president by decree. Basic public services don’t work, vaccines are missing and corruption is everywhere. Yet people still voted [for Noboa]? People are not stupid.

We were the winners on Sunday, April 13, but the process was full of irregularities. In any country with an independent electoral authority, a third of what happened would have been enough to disqualify Noboa.

His entire cabinet campaigned by handing out agricultural kits, medicine, food and stoves to people. That’s vote buying, and it’s illegal. They handed out billions in bonuses. They promised young people jobs in the Eco-Desarrollo program. That alone should have nullified the election and led to his prosecution.

Noboa shouldn’t even have been allowed to run, as he owns property through offshore companies, contrary to Ecuadorian law. They disqualified [indigenous candidate] Yaku Pérez, claiming he had state contracts. But not Noboa, even though it was proven that he had offshore holdings.

His victory was mathematically impossible. One expert analyzed how votes from candidates who didn’t make the runoff are usually distributed. The average in second-round elections is that the winner gets 60% of those votes. Noboa supposedly got 90%.

Electorally, we made an alliance with the third-place party, the indigenous movement. Even if half of their supporters betrayed the deal or didn’t follow their leaders, we should have gained at least some votes. But we barely won any new votes in the second round.

All the polls showed a tie. You can misjudge an election, you might think you won by 2 points and end up losing by 2, but you don’t think you won and then lose by 11 points. That’s just impossible.

How did you receive the news that leftist presidents like Lula in Brazil or Chile’s Gabriel Boric congratulated Noboa and didn’t acknowledge your fraud claims?

Very badly. If Lula had been the one running and had lost under these conditions, I swear they would have said: “We don’t recognize the results, there was fraud.” At the very least, I would have expected them to wait. I would have waited if I were still president and my trusted allies weren’t recognizing the results.

Did that hurt you?

It’s painful. Boric, for instance, was the quickest to recognize Noboa, but also the quickest not to recognize the results in Venezuela. 

Do you feel betrayed by the Latin American left?

By Boric? No. But Lula? It’s more concerning. I get it, though. Brazil is such a large, institutionalized country. I remember Fidel Castro used to say: “Brazil is the only country in the world governed by a single building, and that’s Itamaraty [the headquarters of Brazil’s Foreign Affairs Ministry].” 

So I’m sure Lula got bad information. [Colombian President Gustavo] Petro didn’t stand with us either, but [Mexican President] Claudia Sheinbaum did. Even if we don’t have diplomatic relations with Mexico, she hasn’t recognized the results.

We feel alone in this. There’s a clear double standard. When fraud happens in Venezuela: “Don’t recognize Maduro, he’s a dictator.” But when it happens in Ecuador, nothing. Nothing at all. If even a tenth of this had happened with me as president, they would’ve taken me to the International Criminal Court. They would’ve called in UN peacekeepers.

Your movement has been defeated in the last three elections. Some would say this is proof that Correísmo has hit its ceiling, that your movement can’t go further. How do you respond to that?

The trend was already reversed by the April 13 runoff. But still, what we achieved is exceptional. We reached the second round three times in a row, despite eight years of reputational assassination, with our leaders banned, exiled, persecuted, imprisoned. With the entire media mafia against us. They control everything. And we’re still the strongest party, still making the final round. 

In the 1970s, the communists were killed and disappeared. We are killed reputationally, sentenced in corruption cases based on false testimonies and forged evidence.

Yes, we made mistakes. But under the circumstances, it’s extraordinary. The real question should be: how has Correísmo survived? With all they’ve done to us, any other political movement would’ve folded.

Do you think a political turnaround depends on you returning to Ecuador and running as a candidate?

Of course my presence carries weight. That’s why they convicted me. The day after the sentence, I was due to register as a candidate. I would have had political immunity as a vice presidential or assembly candidate if I had registered. I could have returned to Ecuador, and nothing could have been done.

In Brazil, the Workers’ Party (PT) tried to propel Fernando Haddad as a Lula successor, but it failed. There’s a theory that when Lula steps away from politics, the party will continue to lose ground. Do you think this model, based on strong leaders, is getting exhausted in Latin America?

When everything revolves around a single leader, the process suffers. But we tend to demonize leadership. Strong leadership is an enormous help. Lula, for instance: you can’t just sweep him under the rug. He shines through. 

You ask what will become of the PT after Lula, but what would the PT be without him? Most of the party’s progress has come thanks to him. The task of PT militants is to preserve that strength when Lula is no longer around. And I believe Lula has sown a lot of seeds. Hopefully, a new leader will emerge, but we should not demonize leadership.

The Founding Fathers were leaders in their own right. And even in the 20th century, wasn't Franklin Delano Roosevelt elected four times? He died in office. So, should we demonize that kind of leadership? No. We need to know how to use it wisely.

It’s obvious, though, that we must prepare for the moment when the leader is no longer there, so that the momentum can continue. That’s the task for the rest of us. But it doesn’t mean that strong leadership is somehow bad.

Many left-leaning leaders in Latin America have criticized Maduro’s re-election in Venezuela. If you were president, would you have sided with these leaders, like Lula, in pressuring Maduro?

I would have asked Maduro to open the ballot boxes. I would have proposed an agreement, yes. But there’s a lot of hypocrisy. Maduro has been crucified for far less than what others have done.

Did Maduro raid an embassy? Did he arrest a refugee?¹ No. But Venezuela is labeled a dictatorship, and Ecuador isn’t? That’s what really bothers me, the double standards.

The economic blockade on Venezuela should be lifted. Then, let’s all demand elections, perhaps in a year or two, to give the economy time to recover. But let’s not be hypocrites. They crippled the Venezuelan economy. They slashed its GDP to one-sixth of what it was. They turned a rich country into a poor one.

And during the elections themselves, there’s an open threat: “If Maduro wins, I’ll topple you. If he loses, we’ll help.” And then they say the results aren’t legitimate. That’s not democracy. That’s pure hypocrisy.

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FOOTNOTE

¹ In March 2023, Ecuadorian forces stormed Mexico’s embassy in Quito to arrest former Vice President Jorge Glas —  a move repudiated by heads of state across the political spectrum.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Last week, we asked how long Manuel Merino clung to the Peruvian presidency during the 2020 crisis. The answer is 5 days. How you answered:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 253 days

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 5 days

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 29 days

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 17 hours

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